The endless browser wars(lwn.net)
lwn.net
The endless browser wars
https://lwn.net/Articles/843607/
241 comments
> If you can't tolerate Firefox because of Mozilla's problems, how can you possibly stomach Chrome/Chromium with Google at the wheel?
OT, but I think this is an interesting psychological phenomenon that occurs in a lot of settings, in particular politics: People, services, products etc are not judged by objective (or even just common) standards but by the standards they announce for themselves.
So someone who claims strict moral integrity and then falls short of that is seen as less trustworthy than someone who is upfront about being shady and then surprisingly acts less shady than expected.
If anyone knows a name for this effect, I'd like to know.
OT, but I think this is an interesting psychological phenomenon that occurs in a lot of settings, in particular politics: People, services, products etc are not judged by objective (or even just common) standards but by the standards they announce for themselves.
So someone who claims strict moral integrity and then falls short of that is seen as less trustworthy than someone who is upfront about being shady and then surprisingly acts less shady than expected.
If anyone knows a name for this effect, I'd like to know.
There's another angle here I think you are missing
> If you can't tolerate Firefox because of Mozilla's problems, how can you possibly stomach Chrome/Chromium with Google at the wheel?
It's because it's not enough to be wrong about something (according to certain people), but you must be punished for being wrong. And narcissists can't handle a company not being "100% right" so they punish them by going to their competitors, with no regard if their competitor is objectively worse for their causes. The intent is to cause harm to get your own way.
> If you can't tolerate Firefox because of Mozilla's problems, how can you possibly stomach Chrome/Chromium with Google at the wheel?
It's because it's not enough to be wrong about something (according to certain people), but you must be punished for being wrong. And narcissists can't handle a company not being "100% right" so they punish them by going to their competitors, with no regard if their competitor is objectively worse for their causes. The intent is to cause harm to get your own way.
How about Brave as a Chromium-based alternative to Firefox that isn't worse for the cause?
That would require nuanced discussion. We can't have that! (Kidding aside, I happily use Brave because I find Firefox borderline unusable, but also find Google's tactics unpalatable.)
The larger issue is there shouldn't be a war. There should be as many browsers as people have the hearts desire to create, and it shouldn't matter because they all follow the same standards.
However, in the real world, we've seen the noble goal of open standards get tarnished by the same bullying corporatist tactics. What we need is open and democratic standards, not just a few voices in the room running the show.
The larger issue is there shouldn't be a war. There should be as many browsers as people have the hearts desire to create, and it shouldn't matter because they all follow the same standards.
However, in the real world, we've seen the noble goal of open standards get tarnished by the same bullying corporatist tactics. What we need is open and democratic standards, not just a few voices in the room running the show.
But browsers are by nature an engineering project several level divorced from hardware. There is no natural law demanding that they have to be democratic. Ultimately somebody has to foot the bill for their development time. C++ developers are not exactly a scarce commodity yet you don't see any major governments willing to fund browser development despite it being a critical piece of infrastructure. "Professional services" companies like IBM, Deloitte, Oracle, Accenture, get paid hundreds of millions to billions a year to build CRUD software for the public sector. Maybe it is time to redirect some of those funding to more useful purposes.
This post touches on the 'other' issue with Firefox - the various user unfriendly features that cause friction when using it. I want to love Firefox, but my time is valuable and using Brave instead saves time and frustrations, vs Firefox.
I'm pretty sure these subtle but numerous usability issues are on purpose from up high, because the usability could be fixed so easily. Still Google isn't paying 95% of Mozilla's and Moz's executives bills for them to beat Chrome, but rather to provide a lightning rod for monopoly concerns. From Google's point of view it's a bonus that it wastes the time of the market segment that cares about open systems!
I'm pretty sure these subtle but numerous usability issues are on purpose from up high, because the usability could be fixed so easily. Still Google isn't paying 95% of Mozilla's and Moz's executives bills for them to beat Chrome, but rather to provide a lightning rod for monopoly concerns. From Google's point of view it's a bonus that it wastes the time of the market segment that cares about open systems!
Agreed -- Brave takes all those proprietary APIs for things like bookmark synchronization and does them in a distributed way without hitting third party servers. This is the way forward. I have 10 devices on my sync chain and it works great!
Can you install extensions on Brave for Android?
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The best I could find is the "false-signaling theory of hypocrisy": social psychology research which demonstrates that "people judge hypocrites negatively-even more negatively than people who directly make false statements about their morality" [1]
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28107103/
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28107103/
> So someone who claims strict moral integrity and then falls short of that is seen as less trustworthy than someone who is upfront about being shady and then surprisingly acts less shady than expected.
I don't think this effect exists at all. Google broke "don't be evil" and people still massively choose to use Google services as if nothing ever happened.
I don't think this effect exists at all. Google broke "don't be evil" and people still massively choose to use Google services as if nothing ever happened.
I'd say it's more about other groupings we simultaneously apply to members of the browser group.
Mozilla has to live up to ethics norms we assume for nonprofits in the free software domain which might be Apache or FSF? Google has to live up to UX(?) norms for corporate tech giants, maybe MS and Apple?
Mozilla has to live up to ethics norms we assume for nonprofits in the free software domain which might be Apache or FSF? Google has to live up to UX(?) norms for corporate tech giants, maybe MS and Apple?
Interesting take. But then, I'm old enough to remember the times when Google's motto was simply "Don't be evil."
Killing people's browser sync / safe-browsing / search suggestions / spell-checking / etc is pure evil.
Throw the anti-trust book at them. Make them spin-off YouTube and the rest of the alphabet (ha!).
Killing people's browser sync / safe-browsing / search suggestions / spell-checking / etc is pure evil.
Throw the anti-trust book at them. Make them spin-off YouTube and the rest of the alphabet (ha!).
I would think it is an excuse to just use chromium, because this is what the person actually prefers, but his ideology(or peer group) tells him or her to use FF.
Firefox laid off the majority of their security teams last year. I don’t trust Google but I trust Firefox less.
False.
(I am a Mozilla employee)
This is what I know about what happened there:
There were two enterprise IT teams with similar duties but different purviews. When management was deciding on layoffs, they decided to unify those two teams. Unfortunately that meant that there were redundancies.
My heart goes out to those who lost their jobs, and they have every right to be upset.
But the inferences being made as a result of the resulting tweets just weren't true: this notion that all security teams were wiped out is false. And there are now others assigned to threat management.
Furthermore, the security teams that work on Gecko and Firefox were left mostly if not entirely intact.
I work on security hardening for Gecko on Android, and I’m still here. So is our entire hardening/sandboxing team: https://twitter.com/gcpascutto/status/1293519587967983616
TL;DR: Don’t base your understanding of an organization’s capabilities off of one tweet.
(I am a Mozilla employee)
This is what I know about what happened there:
There were two enterprise IT teams with similar duties but different purviews. When management was deciding on layoffs, they decided to unify those two teams. Unfortunately that meant that there were redundancies.
My heart goes out to those who lost their jobs, and they have every right to be upset.
But the inferences being made as a result of the resulting tweets just weren't true: this notion that all security teams were wiped out is false. And there are now others assigned to threat management.
Furthermore, the security teams that work on Gecko and Firefox were left mostly if not entirely intact.
I work on security hardening for Gecko on Android, and I’m still here. So is our entire hardening/sandboxing team: https://twitter.com/gcpascutto/status/1293519587967983616
TL;DR: Don’t base your understanding of an organization’s capabilities off of one tweet.
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> I'm disappointed by how many people cling to Chrome/Chromium under the justification that they don't like where Mozilla is going.
A very key point. I may rage against the occasional anti-user decisions Mozilla makes every now and then, but objectively Google and thus Chrome are 100x worse in every aspect. Mozilla still does respect privacy and user choice mostly, even if they blunder sometimes. Google is an advertising company with a mission fundamentally contrary to privacy. No way I would ever run Chrome.
And that's before considering the monoculture risk of a single browser which is an even larger threat. Maybe some are too young to remember when IE was dominant and there was a real fear of them closing off most the popular web to be Windows/IE only.
Today Google's control over interoperable web traffic is larger than Microsoft's ever was, through things like the curse of recaptcha that makes browsing more difficult on non-chrome. Another reason to vote with my mouse clicks and never run Chrome.
A very key point. I may rage against the occasional anti-user decisions Mozilla makes every now and then, but objectively Google and thus Chrome are 100x worse in every aspect. Mozilla still does respect privacy and user choice mostly, even if they blunder sometimes. Google is an advertising company with a mission fundamentally contrary to privacy. No way I would ever run Chrome.
And that's before considering the monoculture risk of a single browser which is an even larger threat. Maybe some are too young to remember when IE was dominant and there was a real fear of them closing off most the popular web to be Windows/IE only.
Today Google's control over interoperable web traffic is larger than Microsoft's ever was, through things like the curse of recaptcha that makes browsing more difficult on non-chrome. Another reason to vote with my mouse clicks and never run Chrome.
I think you're conflating different issues here. Usability, vs privacy. Chrome usability is actually better, 'not 100x worse'. I've stopped using Chrome because of the privacy issues, but let's be accurate about the issues so we build better community understanding and possibly solution.
e.g. By realising that Mozilla has better (than Chrome, but still flawed) privacy, but also issues with usability, a nice solution suggests itself: another user-focussed organisation could maintain patches to Firefox to produce a better browser fixing the regular anti-user things Moz does.
e.g. By realising that Mozilla has better (than Chrome, but still flawed) privacy, but also issues with usability, a nice solution suggests itself: another user-focussed organisation could maintain patches to Firefox to produce a better browser fixing the regular anti-user things Moz does.
Yeah I've had some disappointments with Mozilla over the years, but as this point I use it as my main browser in part because I don't want there to be a monopoly with Blink (and Webkit) rendering engines.
And Firefox is honestly still quite good. I have to open up another browser once in a while, but I use Firefox for 99% of my browsing on macOS, Linux, and Windows (mainly Linux these days), including a lot of web apps.
And Firefox is honestly still quite good. I have to open up another browser once in a while, but I use Firefox for 99% of my browsing on macOS, Linux, and Windows (mainly Linux these days), including a lot of web apps.
I second that. Reinstalling Ubuntu, I decided not to install Chrome, just to see. And honestly, everything is going fine (except for some DevTools minor issues).
> I'm disappointed by how many people cling to Chrome/Chromium under the justification that they don't like where Mozilla is going.
Totally agree. You'll see me criticize Mozilla harshly but I still use FF because
1. the alternative is worse
2. secondary: technically speaking Firefox has always had an edge one way or another
Totally agree. You'll see me criticize Mozilla harshly but I still use FF because
1. the alternative is worse
2. secondary: technically speaking Firefox has always had an edge one way or another
What would you say their technical edge is now?
Not eating memory like it's candy for starters.
Also Tree Style Tabs can be made to work.
Containers are really nice too.
No immediate risk of ad blocking api getting neutered.
Containers are really nice too.
No immediate risk of ad blocking api getting neutered.
Also, just changing to a Chromium based browser is not sufficient. Google still takes most of the decisions in where Chromium is going, and downstreams either accept them or workaround them (but for every workaround they do it is more things to keep maintaining in the long run).
So yeah, using a non Chromium browser is the only way to ensure that the Web is still healthy (i.e.: not controlled by only Google) in the long run.
So yeah, using a non Chromium browser is the only way to ensure that the Web is still healthy (i.e.: not controlled by only Google) in the long run.
I think natural entropy will solve that problem over time. Give Microsoft another year or two, and I think we’ll see a hard fork.
Looking back at WebKit, Google forked that into Blink. I don’t know why Firefox couldn’t do the same.
I suppose in a couple years we’ll be able to check this post to see if Microsoft has done a hard fork or not. Will be interesting to see.
Looking back at WebKit, Google forked that into Blink. I don’t know why Firefox couldn’t do the same.
I suppose in a couple years we’ll be able to check this post to see if Microsoft has done a hard fork or not. Will be interesting to see.
I don't know why we'd want Firefox to do that...
As a Firefox developer, I'm not sure why we'd want to do that.
Forking isn't cheap if you want to make significant changes to that fork. We'd be better off staying with Gecko.
(Oh, and we're still all-in on Gecko)
Forking isn't cheap if you want to make significant changes to that fork. We'd be better off staying with Gecko.
(Oh, and we're still all-in on Gecko)
why is a redirect after the submission of a login form needed? Usually they say, that's to avoid the misuse of the history function to login. But firefox already knows, that there is a password field and could clear the data after the submit. Why it's not done?
I don’t either, but the option is there if it’s ever needed. I guess I wasn’t as clear with my point for Firefox (which was a very different point for Microsoft).
> using a non Chromium browser is the only way to ensure that the Web is still healthy
Just using some other browser isn't enough. Unfortunately not all webmasters take this seriously, I reported many website issues as a Firefox user to many orgs, even university departments, the most common answer is "Just use Chrome". The ignorance is enormous.
Just using some other browser isn't enough. Unfortunately not all webmasters take this seriously, I reported many website issues as a Firefox user to many orgs, even university departments, the most common answer is "Just use Chrome". The ignorance is enormous.
I wish I could stomach firefox, but everything about it just absolutely infuriates me. Even with a bunch of addons it is bothersome to run. The issue is that most people spend majority of their time on a PC in a web browser, including myself. Even a 5% worse product is still going to add up to a sizable amount of wasted time/ unneeded frustration. I personally spend hours tinkering with my OS to make it better for me to use, I can't justify using an inferior product in regards to taking a moral stand.
Or at least if I was going to take a moral stand I would start by spending at least 50% more time & money for clothing/ other products not manufactured immorally.
Or at least if I was going to take a moral stand I would start by spending at least 50% more time & money for clothing/ other products not manufactured immorally.
Out of curiosity, what is it that makes Firefox 5% worse than Chromium-based browsers in your eyes?
Not GP, but I decided to try Firefox again last week, and had to give up because I couldn't navigate to intranet URLs without explicitly typing http://
Strangely foo/ works (goes to http://foo/) while foo/bar does not (instead does a web search for foo/bar).
Strangely foo/ works (goes to http://foo/) while foo/bar does not (instead does a web search for foo/bar).
It's these sorts of things that make me realize that people just don't care about the health of the open web, or about protecting their privacy.
Ultimately this is a super minor issue (and turns out there's a way to fix it, per the sibling comment), but everyone just has their own pet excuse why they "can't" change to a browser that is objectively better for the web in every way.
Tragedy of the commons, I guess.
Ultimately this is a super minor issue (and turns out there's a way to fix it, per the sibling comment), but everyone just has their own pet excuse why they "can't" change to a browser that is objectively better for the web in every way.
Tragedy of the commons, I guess.
Just to be clear, I think having to prefix my web searches is not a fix, but rather an even greater inconvenience. I'll either have to type "http://" dozens of times per day, or "g " a hundred times per day, for no discernible reason.
Aside from that I don't think Firefox is particularly good for the web. Their license is no better than that of Chromium, and Chromium has proven time and again it's a good starting point for a fork.
Mozilla employees are paid with search ad revenue, to an even greater extent (95%) than the subset of Blink developers employed by Google -- so their incentives aren't even any better.
Aside from that I don't think Firefox is particularly good for the web. Their license is no better than that of Chromium, and Chromium has proven time and again it's a good starting point for a fork.
Mozilla employees are paid with search ad revenue, to an even greater extent (95%) than the subset of Blink developers employed by Google -- so their incentives aren't even any better.
about:config → keyword.enabled → set to false
You'll have to prefix your searches with a key (in my case it's w for wikipedia, g for Google, and so on), but that's what I prefer personally anyway.
Also set browser.fixup.alternate.enabled to false to prevent Firefox from retrying whatever you have typed in with a .com suffix.
You'll have to prefix your searches with a key (in my case it's w for wikipedia, g for Google, and so on), but that's what I prefer personally anyway.
Also set browser.fixup.alternate.enabled to false to prevent Firefox from retrying whatever you have typed in with a .com suffix.
Slightly slower page loads (5% times all day remember)
Less usable ctrl+tab behaviour for managing lots of tabs
20 second pause to start if not already running on many of my locked down systems over the years, seems to have been fixed in last year or so but perennial problem that was infuriating in the same way nag-ware delays are
F** with the extensions
Ongoing 'minor' user-unfriendly decisions to the actual users of the products to the point where it seems motivated to provide a not-quite-ideal result. In basketball there's a saying, watch the waist not the ball, which translates as watch what they are doing not what they are saying, and by doing this I've begun to realise the regular nature of these snafus is probably intentional (at a high level) and I theorise it's to keep Google's money flowing in by not being a serious competitor to average users who want the best usability.
etc etc
Less usable ctrl+tab behaviour for managing lots of tabs
20 second pause to start if not already running on many of my locked down systems over the years, seems to have been fixed in last year or so but perennial problem that was infuriating in the same way nag-ware delays are
F** with the extensions
Ongoing 'minor' user-unfriendly decisions to the actual users of the products to the point where it seems motivated to provide a not-quite-ideal result. In basketball there's a saying, watch the waist not the ball, which translates as watch what they are doing not what they are saying, and by doing this I've begun to realise the regular nature of these snafus is probably intentional (at a high level) and I theorise it's to keep Google's money flowing in by not being a serious competitor to average users who want the best usability.
etc etc
I had the pause problem about when you had it as well. For me the pause happened periodically, but it was for network requests IIRC, the rest of the browser worked fine, but pages wouldn't load a thing for quite a few seconds. I have not noticed the problem now for quite a few months at least. Since it looks like the pause went away at the same time, I think we had the same problem.
When I use Firefox on my work laptop I get harassed by Microsoft. They keep signing me out of Outlook and saying they wouldn’t have to do that if I was on Edge. And they occasionally put up a message on Microsoft To-Do that they won’t sync my changes because I’m on an unsupported browser. This doesn’t happen with Chrome so unfortunately that’s what I use now. It’s not Firefox’s fault, it actually works better for me everywhere else, but I wanted to stop signing in 6 times a day.
A killer feature for me is opening the history & download list in a tab instead of a window. This way I don't have to alt+tab twice to switch to the next application. Opening the history in the same tab (ctrl+h) isn't good enough because I usually need the time of visit and there is no shortcut to open the download list in the same window.
Perhaps this is just muscle memory and I would think oppositely if I never switched to chrome.
Perhaps this is just muscle memory and I would think oppositely if I never switched to chrome.
about:downloads
chrome://browser/content/places/places.xhtmlSame. The Mozilla organization has not covered themselves in glory over the past few years. And I like some of the things Brave is doing. But using a Chromium browser is a non-starter for me. I will not switch to one until I have no other choice.
I've tried to use Firefox, even though I don't like Mozilla's direction. But it just sucks too much. The new updates have made it worse, not better: these days, it leaks CPU. What do I mean? If I leave it running for too long with a bunch of tabs open, it will eat more and more of my CPU until it's hogging it all. Killing and re-opening solves it, but I can't do that all the time.
Surf, Midori, and Qutebrowser are all good options (webkit-based) that I'd encourage others in similar situations to explore.
Surf, Midori, and Qutebrowser are all good options (webkit-based) that I'd encourage others in similar situations to explore.
That would be a bug. I use it all day with hundreds of tabs (sometimes thousands, but I'm getting better about pruning back) and don't see this. I know many, many people who could say the same.
If you have time, please file it: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi . If you're willing, include a profile ( https://profiler.firefox.com is pretty easy to use). You can look at about:performance (or in newer versions, about:processes, but I don't think that's in release yet.) When you file the bug, you will probably be asked if it still happens in safe mode (which would probably blame an addon).
If you have time, please file it: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi . If you're willing, include a profile ( https://profiler.firefox.com is pretty easy to use). You can look at about:performance (or in newer versions, about:processes, but I don't think that's in release yet.) When you file the bug, you will probably be asked if it still happens in safe mode (which would probably blame an addon).
> If I leave it running for too long with a bunch of tabs open, it will eat more and more of my CPU until it's hogging it all.
That's not normal Firefox behavior. I run multiple windows (one in each monitor), each of them with many dozens of tabs and only time I ever quit Firefox is if I have to reboot the machine for an update, so it runs for many months on end. Never seen this runaway CPU consumption.
That's not normal Firefox behavior. I run multiple windows (one in each monitor), each of them with many dozens of tabs and only time I ever quit Firefox is if I have to reboot the machine for an update, so it runs for many months on end. Never seen this runaway CPU consumption.
> so it runs for many months on end
Danger. You want to restart it more frequently than this for updates.
Danger. You want to restart it more frequently than this for updates.
I've been using it for the last 2 years.
both on linux and windows, works ok on the later, but on linux I keep getting random corrupted graphics / black screens each time ram/swap are almost full. looking into filled bugs this doens't seems to be something new, I can find some bug reports dating back to 6 years and no sugestions for a fix beside disabling hardware acceleration, which doesn't work for me at least.
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I’m not sure anyone claims their reason for not using Firefox is that they think Google is a better organisation than the Mozilla Foundation.
I agree that browser diversity is a good thing for the web, and I’d love it if Firefox was more popular. But I’m not going to let that motivate my reasoning about whether it’s a good web browser.
I agree that browser diversity is a good thing for the web, and I’d love it if Firefox was more popular. But I’m not going to let that motivate my reasoning about whether it’s a good web browser.
That depends - is software quality, especially security, a relevant part of "better organization"?
I want to use Firefox, but when I use it, mobile or desktop, I notice a lot of page-induced crashing bugs or severe rendering errors (e.g., things that absolutely look like pointer discipline issues, blocks copied into the wrong area, etc.), which makes me extremely uncomfortable using it, as those crashes may be exploits in waiting, and there are a lot of them.
I want to use Firefox, but when I use it, mobile or desktop, I notice a lot of page-induced crashing bugs or severe rendering errors (e.g., things that absolutely look like pointer discipline issues, blocks copied into the wrong area, etc.), which makes me extremely uncomfortable using it, as those crashes may be exploits in waiting, and there are a lot of them.
> I believe Firefox is a good enough browser to go toe-to-toe with Chrome. It and it's developer are not without problems. However, at this point I'd use Firefox even if Mozilla was just as bad as Google because I think the diversity is worth it.
But what good is it if it won't deviate from Google's vision of the web? It will go toe-to-toe with Chrome at being Chrome, and almost nothing more.
Mozilla is fine with DRM being a core part of the web, and they completely validated and enabled EME extensions. They deprecated useful technologies that have not been replaced.
I can't forgive them for validating the direction that the web is going in. They had enough leverage to slow it down, and they didn't. They have the same arrogance as Google but they don't have any of the success.
Firefox (then Firebird) didn't beat Microsoft and IE6 by trying to implement half-baked Windows ActiveX and Janus DRM support. They didn't even bother implementing stuff that they didn't think should be part of the vision of Microsoft, Adobe, etc.
I wish they would aim for the web they want, not just follow in the footsteps of others.
I for one use Palemoon, alongside Chrome for sites that need it. There are incredibly useful XUL based extensions that I rely on still, and Palemoon is much friendlier to sandbox and modify. And for modern web garbage, I have Chrome. I don't need Firefox.
But what good is it if it won't deviate from Google's vision of the web? It will go toe-to-toe with Chrome at being Chrome, and almost nothing more.
Mozilla is fine with DRM being a core part of the web, and they completely validated and enabled EME extensions. They deprecated useful technologies that have not been replaced.
I can't forgive them for validating the direction that the web is going in. They had enough leverage to slow it down, and they didn't. They have the same arrogance as Google but they don't have any of the success.
Firefox (then Firebird) didn't beat Microsoft and IE6 by trying to implement half-baked Windows ActiveX and Janus DRM support. They didn't even bother implementing stuff that they didn't think should be part of the vision of Microsoft, Adobe, etc.
I wish they would aim for the web they want, not just follow in the footsteps of others.
I for one use Palemoon, alongside Chrome for sites that need it. There are incredibly useful XUL based extensions that I rely on still, and Palemoon is much friendlier to sandbox and modify. And for modern web garbage, I have Chrome. I don't need Firefox.
> But what good is it if it won't deviate from Google's vision of the web? It will go toe-to-toe with Chrome at being Chrome, and almost nothing more.
By all means, criticize Mozilla. I'm not even saying people should use Firefox. Like I said, I don't want Firefox to become dominant. People just shouldn't use criticisms of Mozilla as justification for using a browser developed by a demonstrably worse organization.
I've seen a few people respond with examples of poor experiences they've had with Firefox. I haven't shared those experiences, but if people have found that Chrome/Chromium is a significantly better product than Firefox that's at least a valid reason to consider sticking with Google's browser.
If people are comfortable using a completely different browser like Pale Moon with no ties to Firefox or Chromium, that's even better.
By all means, criticize Mozilla. I'm not even saying people should use Firefox. Like I said, I don't want Firefox to become dominant. People just shouldn't use criticisms of Mozilla as justification for using a browser developed by a demonstrably worse organization.
I've seen a few people respond with examples of poor experiences they've had with Firefox. I haven't shared those experiences, but if people have found that Chrome/Chromium is a significantly better product than Firefox that's at least a valid reason to consider sticking with Google's browser.
If people are comfortable using a completely different browser like Pale Moon with no ties to Firefox or Chromium, that's even better.
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One nice thing with open source is that often you don't have to use a "vanilla" version of a given system. I'm using Ubuntu but I view Unity and Gnome-Shell as brain-dead, tablet oriented interfaces but fortunately, I can use Ubuntu Mate and don't have to deal with this stuff at all.
I mostly like where Firefox is going, I like it's multiple identity tabs and it's general look. But it might help Mozilla to work out various ways to make sufficiently "skinnable" that someone else could maintain a Chrome-like version for all those people who like whatever it is about Chrome that's cool.
I mostly like where Firefox is going, I like it's multiple identity tabs and it's general look. But it might help Mozilla to work out various ways to make sufficiently "skinnable" that someone else could maintain a Chrome-like version for all those people who like whatever it is about Chrome that's cool.
If not leaving Firefox, what is the preferred way to signal to Mozilla that we aren't happy with their leadership's choices?
If product usage signals an organization that you're happy with their leadership choices, then doesn't leaving Firefox for Chrome/Chromium signal to Google that you're happy with theirs? Is that really a better message?
I'm not advocating for Firefox here. It's the browser I use, but there are other options out there. Safari is obviously an option for people in the Apple ecosystem and another user suggested Pale Moon. I think there are even justifiable reasons for using Chrome/Chromium. Like I said, I don't want Firefox to become dominant. I want browser diversity.
I'm not advocating for Firefox here. It's the browser I use, but there are other options out there. Safari is obviously an option for people in the Apple ecosystem and another user suggested Pale Moon. I think there are even justifiable reasons for using Chrome/Chromium. Like I said, I don't want Firefox to become dominant. I want browser diversity.
I switched to Brave. To me, it seems like the best compromise.
Their leadership has sold their soul to Google already. Checkout the executive pay issues, and how 95% of the money comes from Google. Moz is just a lightning rod for Google these days. Change has to come from the top, and if Firefox became a serious competitor by fixing their usability issues then Google would kneecap them, subtly and privately at first by exerting pressure on the executives about whether the money spigot would dry up ..
Key points:
> Much of what appears to be Chrome (or Chromium) functionality is, in truth, provided by servers in Google's data centers. These include bookmark synchronization, the safe-browsing feature, search suggestions, spell-checking, and more.
> On January 15, the Chromium blog carried this brief notice that, as of March 15, non-Chrome builds of Chromium would lose access to these APIs.
> Anticipating this, distributors are already wondering whether packaging Chromium is still worth the effort.
From a first read, I guessed it is time to install Firefox. However, I noticed that I: 1) don't sync bookmarks, 2) don't care for the safe-browsing feature (I understand it is the annoying message that a website is "not safe"?), 3) have my own spell-checking service. So what exactly is meant by "search suggestions"? Is Google actually disabling access to their search API? Why wouldn't this affect Firefox? Why would Google even consider doing this? And, I guess that 4) I can still use another search engine.
So, does anyone know what's hidden under "and more"? Because even if all the features from above were missing, I fail to see why this should result in Chromium being removed from distros. It's still a functional, reliable and very fast browser. I am additionally confused because Chromium without these features is more attractive to me than the current version.
> Much of what appears to be Chrome (or Chromium) functionality is, in truth, provided by servers in Google's data centers. These include bookmark synchronization, the safe-browsing feature, search suggestions, spell-checking, and more.
> On January 15, the Chromium blog carried this brief notice that, as of March 15, non-Chrome builds of Chromium would lose access to these APIs.
> Anticipating this, distributors are already wondering whether packaging Chromium is still worth the effort.
From a first read, I guessed it is time to install Firefox. However, I noticed that I: 1) don't sync bookmarks, 2) don't care for the safe-browsing feature (I understand it is the annoying message that a website is "not safe"?), 3) have my own spell-checking service. So what exactly is meant by "search suggestions"? Is Google actually disabling access to their search API? Why wouldn't this affect Firefox? Why would Google even consider doing this? And, I guess that 4) I can still use another search engine.
So, does anyone know what's hidden under "and more"? Because even if all the features from above were missing, I fail to see why this should result in Chromium being removed from distros. It's still a functional, reliable and very fast browser. I am additionally confused because Chromium without these features is more attractive to me than the current version.
I think the article somewhat misconstrues the reasons why maintainers are thinking of dropping support for packaging Chromium. Maintaining the Chromium package is an unusually laborious task, with a lot of releases, and huge compile times. It's simply a gigantic codebase with the order of millions of lines of code, and there are only a couple of people (at best) in each distro dedicating time to keep track of the latest changes. The Chromium in Debian has been developing a growing list of security issues as it falls behind the latest versions https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=972134
Google's forced removal of features from Chromium may just be the straw that broke the camel's back. I see other comments on HN and LWN question the maintainers' judgement, without realising how many resources it takes to package Chromium for distros.
Google's forced removal of features from Chromium may just be the straw that broke the camel's back. I see other comments on HN and LWN question the maintainers' judgement, without realising how many resources it takes to package Chromium for distros.
I'll throw out there that I did switch from Chrome to FF back when Quantum came out and haven't looked back since.
It's snappier than chrome, seems to hog less resources and I find their containers feature a godsend for seperating my work and personal accounts.
So I'd encourage it, I've been with FF for a couple years now and I love it.
It's snappier than chrome, seems to hog less resources and I find their containers feature a godsend for seperating my work and personal accounts.
So I'd encourage it, I've been with FF for a couple years now and I love it.
I agree.
Firefox is my main browser. I use the others (mainly for testing).
It’s gotten better and better and no longer find “debuging JavaScript is enough better in chrome” to do that . I also really like the way the dev tools handle css grid.
Firefox is my main browser. I use the others (mainly for testing).
It’s gotten better and better and no longer find “debuging JavaScript is enough better in chrome” to do that . I also really like the way the dev tools handle css grid.
I find this seriously confusing too. None of these sound like major, or even all that useful, features, and yet they talk about "considering whether there is any value in a crippled version of Chromium".
What makes it crippled?
What makes it crippled?
Chrome's sync does sync more than just bookmarks. You can paste "chrome://sync-internals/" into the url bar to see the list of synced stuff, it's in a table on the far right, or click the "data" tab. The synced autofill, for example, is useful to me.
"The synced autofill, for example, is useful to me."
Yet another reason to remember to use private mode when browsing at 'home'.
Yet another reason to remember to use private mode when browsing at 'home'.
> Why would Google even consider doing this?
The author's extrapolations seem implausible.
Bookmark synchronization is a non-issue as this is something any bundler of Chromium would have to build & maintain themselves no matter what engine they bundled. So Google excluding it is irrelevant.
But for Safe-Browsing and Search Suggestions, not only are these sources of data/insight/revenue for Google, but more oddly: Google Safe-Browsing is used by Firefox and other browsers, and Search Suggestions is provided by ALL search engines that have such a feature to ANY browser integrating their search. Excluding these from Google's own open-source engine while non-Google engines continue to use them seems unlikely.
The author's extrapolations seem implausible.
Bookmark synchronization is a non-issue as this is something any bundler of Chromium would have to build & maintain themselves no matter what engine they bundled. So Google excluding it is irrelevant.
But for Safe-Browsing and Search Suggestions, not only are these sources of data/insight/revenue for Google, but more oddly: Google Safe-Browsing is used by Firefox and other browsers, and Search Suggestions is provided by ALL search engines that have such a feature to ANY browser integrating their search. Excluding these from Google's own open-source engine while non-Google engines continue to use them seems unlikely.
Not a single one of these features matter to me, either. Probably the only feature I'll miss is automatically installing my Chrome apps when I log in, but it gets used so infrequently.
Safe browsing is an incredibly useful thing. Anyone can report a phishing website, and if it actually is, it gets added to the safe browsing blocklist. Then when anyone gets tricked into clicking a link to the phishing website they get a big red warning, no matter how closely the phishing website matches the real website.
I'm guessing that means personalized search autocomplete from the url bar.
Holding strong to Firefox as long as I have to.
What really strikes me is why more people aren't pushing for open-source browsers. One would think that it is important to have an element of trust for something that makes up the bulk of your computer's uptime, but perhaps open source is no longer a good indicator of trust for projects as large and complex as modern browsers, or people are willing to trust them anyway.
Other than Firefox and Brave, I can't think of any "mainstream" browser choices that can be considered free software or open source.
What really strikes me is why more people aren't pushing for open-source browsers. One would think that it is important to have an element of trust for something that makes up the bulk of your computer's uptime, but perhaps open source is no longer a good indicator of trust for projects as large and complex as modern browsers, or people are willing to trust them anyway.
Other than Firefox and Brave, I can't think of any "mainstream" browser choices that can be considered free software or open source.
For many many people Facebook down means internet is broken.
Can’t even tell me if using browser or App.
When driving somewhere I often ask the navigator which app they are using, google of Apple Maps. 5 years still can’t tell the difference. Oddly She knows Waze.
Tech people concerns don’t line up well to normal people.
When driving somewhere I often ask the navigator which app they are using, google of Apple Maps. 5 years still can’t tell the difference. Oddly She knows Waze.
Tech people concerns don’t line up well to normal people.
I've discovered a new one recently: I asked people what browser they were using on their Android, and they couldn't tell me. When I asked them to show me, they showed me the Google search bar on the homepage.
People don't even use a browser anymore, they're using a previewer for browsing the web. I was kinda sad to see that they used that thing, but in a way we should be happy about that; when people want to check the recipe for a cheesecake, they go and get a recipe for a cheesecake. They don't care about what tools are in the way and they shouldn't. We tech people tend to forget about why we build software. If Google wasn't Google I'd be very fine with people forgetting about the name of their browser, but in this instance they're using one of the worst ways to browse the web.
People don't even use a browser anymore, they're using a previewer for browsing the web. I was kinda sad to see that they used that thing, but in a way we should be happy about that; when people want to check the recipe for a cheesecake, they go and get a recipe for a cheesecake. They don't care about what tools are in the way and they shouldn't. We tech people tend to forget about why we build software. If Google wasn't Google I'd be very fine with people forgetting about the name of their browser, but in this instance they're using one of the worst ways to browse the web.
Apple's webkit is open source as well. All major browsers are based on open source engines. The situation could be much worse.
That's true, but Safari uses a closed source JavaScript engine.
Seems to me it doesn't count for much unless the whole browser is Free and Open Source. A single non-Free component is enough for them to sneak in functionality that you don't want.
See also: the VSCodium editor/IDE. Official builds of Visual Studio Code do not correspond to the published Visual Studio Code source-code, as they ship with additional telemetry code. The VSCodium project releases binaries more faithfully based on the Open Source code.
Seems to me it doesn't count for much unless the whole browser is Free and Open Source. A single non-Free component is enough for them to sneak in functionality that you don't want.
See also: the VSCodium editor/IDE. Official builds of Visual Studio Code do not correspond to the published Visual Studio Code source-code, as they ship with additional telemetry code. The VSCodium project releases binaries more faithfully based on the Open Source code.
Safari's JS engine is open source:
https://trac.webkit.org/browser/trunk/Source/JavaScriptCore
My mistake, thanks. TIL.
Is it used in any fully Free and Open Source browser?
Is it used in any fully Free and Open Source browser?
Yes, many. Every WebKitGTK based browser [1] will use JSC, so that includes the "GNOME Web" web browser, Midori, and a host of smaller niche browsers.
[1] https://webkitgtk.org/
[1] https://webkitgtk.org/
Neat. Konqueror uses a different engine, right?
It can. Historically Konqueror used KHTML, however, the default has been changed to QTWebEngine, which is based on Blink i.e. Chromium.
It also supports (supported?) rendering using WebKit, or, you can manually change back to KHTML. However, all recent versions of Konqueror default to WebEngine. https://wiki.debian.org/Konqueror
It also supports (supported?) rendering using WebKit, or, you can manually change back to KHTML. However, all recent versions of Konqueror default to WebEngine. https://wiki.debian.org/Konqueror
These browser war threads always attract the worst kind of pundits: ones who have strong opinions but no idea what they're talking about.
> That's true, but Safari uses a closed source JavaScript engine.
No.
> That's true, but Safari uses a closed source JavaScript engine.
No.
These thread always attract the worst kind of commenters: ones who make strong claims without providing any explanation or evidence.
It's good that we agree.
And Webkit itself started a fork of KHTML, if I recall correctly.
Correct. As a former die-hard KDE user, KHTML/Konqueror was my daily browser, until I switched to OS X Tiger. Been using Safari since that. Also for web development.
If you’re running a closed source operating system (or large parts of it are closed source) why would you be particularly concerned about your browser?
Your question doesn't make sense except from a very, very narrow ideological perspective.
It's useful to have an Open Source browser since:
- most of the standards that a browser implements are also open standards
- if it's under a permissive license, you can port it to either your own device, or unsupported devices.
- proprietary browsers are influenced by business goals to do untoward things with regard to privacy and incompatible changes.
- cross-platform abilities. I use Firefox across Mac OS, linux and Windows, though mainly Mac OS.
Source: ex-Netscape,was a member of a well-known browser protocol committee.
It's useful to have an Open Source browser since:
- most of the standards that a browser implements are also open standards
- if it's under a permissive license, you can port it to either your own device, or unsupported devices.
- proprietary browsers are influenced by business goals to do untoward things with regard to privacy and incompatible changes.
- cross-platform abilities. I use Firefox across Mac OS, linux and Windows, though mainly Mac OS.
Source: ex-Netscape,was a member of a well-known browser protocol committee.
> if it's under a permissive license, you can port it to either your own device, or unsupported devices.
You can do that even if it's copylefted. What difference does it make? As long as it is free software you can do it.
You can do that even if it's copylefted. What difference does it make? As long as it is free software you can do it.
You don't consider chromium open source?
I think OP does because Brave uses Chromium.
My understanding is that chromium can't be run on Windows or Mac. Chrome Canary or some testing variant can but not Chromium. It's hard to consider it a mainstream option in that case for me.
EDIT: this is untrue, chromium builds are available for all platforms from chromium.org. Please ignore
EDIT: this is untrue, chromium builds are available for all platforms from chromium.org. Please ignore
>can't be run on windows
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that. chromium.org doesn't offer chroimium builds on their website but there are a number of places you can get someone elses build, for example https://chromium.woolyss.com/ or https://github.com/macchrome/winchrome/tree/master or presumably just build it yourself if you wanted to.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that. chromium.org doesn't offer chroimium builds on their website but there are a number of places you can get someone elses build, for example https://chromium.woolyss.com/ or https://github.com/macchrome/winchrome/tree/master or presumably just build it yourself if you wanted to.
My comment was poorly worded, of course they can be built and run. I just feel like the extra hoops one would have to go through, finding a build or building from source (which is a very power-user use case) would be disqualifying it from being considered a mainstream choice available to the masses.
But yes, that is fair.
But yes, that is fair.
The Chromium project does maintain an official alternative to those: download-chromium.appspot.com. I think it's discoverable via documentation on chromium.org albeit perhaps (I don't remember) not from the main download page.
(Disclosure: I work at Google on Chrome.)
(Disclosure: I work at Google on Chrome.)
or even easier:
choco install chromium
choco install ungoogled-chromium
https://chocolatey.org/packages?q=chromium
choco install chromium
choco install ungoogled-chromium
https://chocolatey.org/packages?q=chromium
and if you want extensions the easy way in ungoogled-chromium :
https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store
https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store
FWIW, I don't think that is true.
https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium
https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium
Confirm, just click and run a pre-built package. I recently downloaded Chromium 79 for Mac in order to debug an issue in Tesla's browser which is based on that. Neat.
I didn't realize they were using a user-agent to determine which platform to serve executables for. Was just getting Linux which confused me.
Oh, that's good to see. I stand corrected.
most people don't even think that deeply about it, firefox and chrome are both trusted, end of thought.
ease of use beats moral advantage most times (almost every time)
ease of use beats moral advantage most times (almost every time)
[deleted]
I switched over to Waterfox after their recent blog post[0]. Not a political matter, it just reeked of paternalism. I'll hold on to Gecko as long as I can, but Mozilla keeps making decisions that force me to hold my nose.
[0] https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-d...
[0] https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-d...
I don't see at all how that post is forcing you to hold your nose.
It is a straight and simple denunciation of the attack on the US Capitol, and a call to critically investigate the role social media played in it. How is that controversial?
It is a straight and simple denunciation of the attack on the US Capitol, and a call to critically investigate the role social media played in it. How is that controversial?
No, I absolutely agree with the sentiment of the post. It was a singular sentence that indicated Mozilla's comfort with intermediating between the user and the content they consume.
>Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation.
It's an innocuous sentiment, but one with significant long-term implications for the behavioral norms of web-browsers.
I've held my nose at a few decisions pertaining to the general direction of the browser, such as the by-default inclusion of Pocket - which I resented, but could understand their need to find ways to become financially independent, and the browser otherwise improved consistently.
>Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation.
It's an innocuous sentiment, but one with significant long-term implications for the behavioral norms of web-browsers.
I've held my nose at a few decisions pertaining to the general direction of the browser, such as the by-default inclusion of Pocket - which I resented, but could understand their need to find ways to become financially independent, and the browser otherwise improved consistently.
shrug I'm not the biggest fan of the post, but unless their opinions become downright offensive or affect their product in any way I'm not inclined to drop it. Different strokes for different folks, of course.
Waterfox seems nice enough but I'm not sure how I feel about it being a fork of an older version essentially. It'd help if I had an idea about the technical stuff that goes into the browser, but I'm just not sure if I can trust it as much as I do Firefox for example.
Waterfox seems nice enough but I'm not sure how I feel about it being a fork of an older version essentially. It'd help if I had an idea about the technical stuff that goes into the browser, but I'm just not sure if I can trust it as much as I do Firefox for example.
"we need more than deplatforming" and auto-enabling fact checkers which thus far are plainly partisan hacks is a nope. They're just fine creating a political monoculture, and I can't get the taste of vomit out of my mouth. The browser used to stand for privacy and choice first and foremost. We'll see how they end up but I don't want to support shit like that.
Until someone creates a new browser with a new render/scripting engine. Which everyone always jumps on saying "it's impossible", the war is over. Chrome has won. Chrome is currently giving life support to Mozilla and when they decide to axe that, well it's game over for Mozilla.
The depressing part is the freedom, the new that the internet once provided is over. It's been turned in to a commercial breeding ground and we are the cattle to be milked and bred. Until we create a whole new infrastructure, protocol suite away from the broken existing OSI model, the internet isn't going to heal. It's going to be robbed and stabbed repeatedly over and over again.
Look at your browsing history today, how many times have you visited that one site in the last year? Now compare that to how many new sites you have visited in the same year; not a lot I expect.
The depressing part is the freedom, the new that the internet once provided is over. It's been turned in to a commercial breeding ground and we are the cattle to be milked and bred. Until we create a whole new infrastructure, protocol suite away from the broken existing OSI model, the internet isn't going to heal. It's going to be robbed and stabbed repeatedly over and over again.
Look at your browsing history today, how many times have you visited that one site in the last year? Now compare that to how many new sites you have visited in the same year; not a lot I expect.
The issue is that Firefox HAS created a new rendering engine, but people don't switch. It has nothing to do with technology, people wont even try to switch. Some for fanboyism, some because they would have to adapt, some don't even know what browser is.
What I do consider staggering is how many technically capable people are not prepared to make a switch.
Google is slowly closing down the lock-down trap they have nurtured for so many years and now it should be obvious to anyone who is looking at "progress" (or decline?) of internet, but this is still not enough to at least stop using the chrome.
Ah, people... we will just never learn.
What I do consider staggering is how many technically capable people are not prepared to make a switch.
Google is slowly closing down the lock-down trap they have nurtured for so many years and now it should be obvious to anyone who is looking at "progress" (or decline?) of internet, but this is still not enough to at least stop using the chrome.
Ah, people... we will just never learn.
Until recently, I used Firefox on my Mac, and had been for a couple of years. I got tired of the browser being a bit slow and consistently consuming 20-30% CPU even when not doing anything. My MacBook Pro's fan was running 100% of the time. I don't have many tabs open and never found an explanation.
Last week, I decided I had enough, and switched over to Chrome. Now the fan doesn't run anymore, and Chrome consumes much less CPU. I was also quite astounded by just how much faster Chrome is. Firefox feels fine when using it, but even with all the Rust stuff they've integrated, it still can't measure up to Chrome. It feels like I've upgraded my machine.
I don't miss anything from Firefox. I wouldn't mind having something like container tabs, but I can do without them. On the contrary, I discover things I prefer in Chrome. Like the really superior 1Password integration that fully enables form fields, or the way keyword searches work from the address bar.
I say this with some regret — I'd rather have Mozilla dominate the web than Google. But if they had thousands of people working on Firefox and still couldn't make it as good, I'm not holding out hope.
Last week, I decided I had enough, and switched over to Chrome. Now the fan doesn't run anymore, and Chrome consumes much less CPU. I was also quite astounded by just how much faster Chrome is. Firefox feels fine when using it, but even with all the Rust stuff they've integrated, it still can't measure up to Chrome. It feels like I've upgraded my machine.
I don't miss anything from Firefox. I wouldn't mind having something like container tabs, but I can do without them. On the contrary, I discover things I prefer in Chrome. Like the really superior 1Password integration that fully enables form fields, or the way keyword searches work from the address bar.
I say this with some regret — I'd rather have Mozilla dominate the web than Google. But if they had thousands of people working on Firefox and still couldn't make it as good, I'm not holding out hope.
I did the same, but Chrome -> Safari. My battery life is considerably better.
Safari almost has no extensions, and is severely lagging on a workstation-grade Mac and I suspect it's the huge amount of bookmarks that I have.
Furthermore, invoking the list of tabs (actually a grid of tabs) is also very slow and feels like the machine is struggling doing it.
I like Safari. It's extremely lightweight. But it's not given proper attention by Apple, which is a big shame. They have the resources to make it as fast as Chrome is. But they don't. :(
Furthermore, invoking the list of tabs (actually a grid of tabs) is also very slow and feels like the machine is struggling doing it.
I like Safari. It's extremely lightweight. But it's not given proper attention by Apple, which is a big shame. They have the resources to make it as fast as Chrome is. But they don't. :(
I'd certainly prefer Safari (which I used for years), but it is unfortunately severely lacking in extensions.
I'm afraid Firefox has gotten to a point where it is too niche to recover. The last time I checked, 80+% of https://webcompat.com's reports were sites that were broken in FF, not because it is less standards compliant than the competition, but just because there was no testing.
Mozilla had been courting devs with MDN, ever improving dev tools and sexy tech (Servo) for years, with some success, although they weren't there yet.
Now they've completely dropped that ball (and fired the respective people working on these techs). Without Web dev on board, I don't think they'll ever catch up.
Degooglified Chromium was already the way to go since the June firings IMO, it's great that Google makes it easier to get that experience.
Mozilla had been courting devs with MDN, ever improving dev tools and sexy tech (Servo) for years, with some success, although they weren't there yet.
Now they've completely dropped that ball (and fired the respective people working on these techs). Without Web dev on board, I don't think they'll ever catch up.
Degooglified Chromium was already the way to go since the June firings IMO, it's great that Google makes it easier to get that experience.
> Degooglified Chromium was already the way to go IMO, it's great that Google makes it easier to get that experience.
For now. Android has shown us exactly how Google treats their "open source" products once they have rid themselves entirely of viable competition.
Google really has become the late-90s, early-2000s Microsoft. First they "embrace" by releasing a product as open source. Then they "extend" by packaging the official release of the product with their own proprietary functionality. Then they "extinguish" by slowly siphoning functionality from the open source project into their own proprietary extensions (see Google Play Services).
For now. Android has shown us exactly how Google treats their "open source" products once they have rid themselves entirely of viable competition.
Google really has become the late-90s, early-2000s Microsoft. First they "embrace" by releasing a product as open source. Then they "extend" by packaging the official release of the product with their own proprietary functionality. Then they "extinguish" by slowly siphoning functionality from the open source project into their own proprietary extensions (see Google Play Services).
Yes, it sucks. They've also pulled some form of EEE with the whole Web platform by allocating so much manpower to Chrome and related techs.
According to https://www.w3.org/community/wicg/participants Google has 168 employees working on incubating Web specs, vs 47 for Microsoft, 10 for Apple and 9 for Mozilla (maybe they require their employees to disclose their status in that page and others don't though, there are quite a few unaffiliated folks on that page).
According to https://www.w3.org/community/wicg/participants Google has 168 employees working on incubating Web specs, vs 47 for Microsoft, 10 for Apple and 9 for Mozilla (maybe they require their employees to disclose their status in that page and others don't though, there are quite a few unaffiliated folks on that page).
> Some for fanboyism, some because they would have to adapt, some don't even know what browser is.
And some because they find Firefox unusable. On macOS, Firefox is a subpar browser—it’s awful for automation (no AppleScript support) and accessibility (with Voice Control on, say “show numbers” in both Safari and Firefox). I could go on in all the ways it lacks, especially if I referenced other HN threads where macOS users talk about Firefox. Many of us try to like Firefox, but Mozilla doesn’t make it easy.
And some because they find Firefox unusable. On macOS, Firefox is a subpar browser—it’s awful for automation (no AppleScript support) and accessibility (with Voice Control on, say “show numbers” in both Safari and Firefox). I could go on in all the ways it lacks, especially if I referenced other HN threads where macOS users talk about Firefox. Many of us try to like Firefox, but Mozilla doesn’t make it easy.
I tried to switch multiple times but Firefox was unbearably slow and used a lot of memory. I guess I’m not the only one with that experience.
> Google is slowly closing down the lockdown trap they have nurtured for so many years
I think that forks of Chromium which have their own sync are easily thwarting this effort. If nothing else, you can always use Edge.
I think that forks of Chromium which have their own sync are easily thwarting this effort. If nothing else, you can always use Edge.
It's so much more pernicious than that. As long as one company controls the One Rendering Engine to Rule Them All, one company de facto controls the Web itself, and everyone else is mostly just along for the ride.
It's worse even than that.
As long as one company controls the One Rendering Engine, all websites are tested against that One Rendering Engine (i.e. not the truth of the spec).
It becomes impossible to create a new rendering engine without actively copying the quirks behaviours.
As long as one company controls the One Rendering Engine, all websites are tested against that One Rendering Engine (i.e. not the truth of the spec).
It becomes impossible to create a new rendering engine without actively copying the quirks behaviours.
It also - and this is why folks got so keyed up about the last browser monoculture - makes it impossible to create a successful alternative software platform without the support of the One Rendering Engine. So it becomes an agent of an overall software monoculture.
Sadly, I fear that the reason Free Software folks don't seem to be getting quite so keyed up about Chrome is that, at least for now, the One Rendering Engine happens to work on Linux. It seems that even principles can be mercenary.
Sadly, I fear that the reason Free Software folks don't seem to be getting quite so keyed up about Chrome is that, at least for now, the One Rendering Engine happens to work on Linux. It seems that even principles can be mercenary.
In other words, Flash is back.
Chrome to Edge is just trading one monopolist vendor lock-in for another.
Have people forgotten that edge is chromium already?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/download-...
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/download-...
"Just trading one monopolist vendor lock-in for the same monopolist vendor lock-in, but now wearing a fake mustache."
I was originally pretty excited about Edge, even as a non-Windows user. I'm not sad to see IE go. But times have changed, and the balance of power has shifted. Now that IE is no longer dominant, simply losing it only worsens the browser oligopoly. Replacing it with a new rendering engine that's designed from the ground up to be standards compliant, though, makes things better. It could have meant that Firefox could once again have had an actual ally in trying to prop up a free and open Web.
Microsoft giving up on Edge's rendering engine and replacing it with Chromium, though, means that, ironically, the death of IE ultimately served to further exactly the bad situation that it once emblematized.
I was originally pretty excited about Edge, even as a non-Windows user. I'm not sad to see IE go. But times have changed, and the balance of power has shifted. Now that IE is no longer dominant, simply losing it only worsens the browser oligopoly. Replacing it with a new rendering engine that's designed from the ground up to be standards compliant, though, makes things better. It could have meant that Firefox could once again have had an actual ally in trying to prop up a free and open Web.
Microsoft giving up on Edge's rendering engine and replacing it with Chromium, though, means that, ironically, the death of IE ultimately served to further exactly the bad situation that it once emblematized.
This is like saying why move from a dictatorship to democracy.
We're just trading one leadership figure for another.
We're just trading one leadership figure for another.
Afaik, Mozilla didn't release any Firefox version with their new rendering engine. They just declared it a failure without any attempt to make it run.
I know, because I've been following its news and was eager to try anything that Mozilla declared beta quality. I just am not willing to go search for a hidden code repository and compile it myself.
I know, because I've been following its news and was eager to try anything that Mozilla declared beta quality. I just am not willing to go search for a hidden code repository and compile it myself.
Firefox Quantum did massively rework the browser engine and is presumably what the parent is talking about (multiprocess support, new CSS engine, various other bits and pieces)
I assume you mean Servo, which was a research project from the start and never intended to be a new production engine, but did produce side products like the CSS engine that are used.
I assume you mean Servo, which was a research project from the start and never intended to be a new production engine, but did produce side products like the CSS engine that are used.
Yes, the last major piece AFAIK was WebRender (hardware-accelerated compositing), which has been shipped last autumn.
WebRender is neither "shipped" nor "not shipped", it's rolling out to increasing audiences based on Mozilla Corp's confidence concerning stability of WebRender on certain platforms and hardware configurations.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/GFX/WebRender_Where
I had missed the "with approved hardware" bit regarding Win10 :-)
Still, it does run in the wild on all major OSes.
I had missed the "with approved hardware" bit regarding Win10 :-)
Still, it does run in the wild on all major OSes.
Mozilla has also shot itself in the foot by alienating Firefox's core userbase (power users) with terrible attempts to copy Chrome in a (failed) attempt to cater to idiots.
They ended up trading off powerful extensions for what? A terrible, slower copy of Chrome with Pocket and a share button built into the browser. Seriously.
They ended up trading off powerful extensions for what? A terrible, slower copy of Chrome with Pocket and a share button built into the browser. Seriously.
YMMV but I've found the new Firefox Quantum faster and its extensions easier to write. While the UI customizability has dropped a bit it's more secure with the line of death keeping out deceptive UIs
They lost the power users because they lost focus on their core product which is a web browser. If they want to keep power users then make a useful non hostile browser that puts the user back in FULL control. Under no circumstances should a website EVER manipulate windows, open windows, prevent me from closing a window, or play audio or video without my consent. Instead we get a poor chrome copy.
> Chrome is currently giving life support to Mozilla and when they decide to axe that, well it's game over for Mozilla.
Mozilla has a viable business model: making a browser and selling placement of search engine. They aren't on "life support" from Google.
I use Firefox every day and it's a great browser. Chrome has not leap-frogged the competition. It's just the default choice for most people.
Mozilla has a viable business model: making a browser and selling placement of search engine. They aren't on "life support" from Google.
I use Firefox every day and it's a great browser. Chrome has not leap-frogged the competition. It's just the default choice for most people.
> Mozilla has a viable business model: making a browser and selling placement of search engine.
The problem is that the latter thing is only valuable while the former thing has enough users. As Chrome continues to siphon market share away from Firefox, Google will be willing to pay less and less for default search engine placement.
Honestly I think the main reason Google keeps being so "generous" is because Firefox is ammunition they can use to fight anti-trust claims.
The problem is that the latter thing is only valuable while the former thing has enough users. As Chrome continues to siphon market share away from Firefox, Google will be willing to pay less and less for default search engine placement.
Honestly I think the main reason Google keeps being so "generous" is because Firefox is ammunition they can use to fight anti-trust claims.
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There is too much money in milking average non technical people in any way possible. I guess whichever "new internet" pops up will be awesome and used by just a small number of power users. Great and flexible tools will never be used by the average person. I've had 2 close family members in a span of 2 weeks get lost in the whole "log into your chrome account" vs "log into your google account within your chrome account" thing. Any remotely complex feature beyond "2 clicks to all of the 4 things I use the internet for" is just confusing people. And it's OK because that seems to be the reality.
Ads for the general public are here to stay
Ads for the general public are here to stay
It is both possible and extremely likely that people will continue to create new web browsers. Simply not for the HTTP web.
https://gemini.circumlunar.space
Gemini is a web protocol that aims to achieve the original goal of HTPP: to create a document web. It is extremely strict about adding new features to the protocol, unlike HTTP. This means that it is easy and should remain easy to implement new browsers, and I think that is a fantastic thing!
https://gemini.circumlunar.space
Gemini is a web protocol that aims to achieve the original goal of HTPP: to create a document web. It is extremely strict about adding new features to the protocol, unlike HTTP. This means that it is easy and should remain easy to implement new browsers, and I think that is a fantastic thing!
You just summarized what I wrote two days ago https://ruky.me/2021/02/03/would-you-pay-me-if-i-built-a-web...
The barrier to entry just seems too high now for a new browser or render/scripting engine. Things like Widevine/DRM, Apple's refusal to allow another browser, the broad footprint of browser functionality, etc. It's almost like it would have to be something other than a browser. Like the transition from gopher/ftp/newsgroups to web browsers. A bigger leap.
> The larger problem, though, is that it's not at all clear that Firefox will remain a viable alternative to Chrome. Its market share has been falling for years, and not everybody is pleased with the directions that the Mozilla Foundation has taken. The creators of web sites have responded by not caring about Firefox; having to retry broken web sites in Chrome is a ritual that many Firefox users have had to get used to. It's not surprising that users give up and just run Chrome from the outset.
Pardon ? I don't run on any issue that requires using Chrome instead of Firefox. At least, not usually.
Also, as web developer I always work on Firefox and then I try on Chromiun and Edge to see if I run on a Blink bug (Yeah! I hit a few working on this way) or something that it's different between Firefox and Blink engine
Pardon ? I don't run on any issue that requires using Chrome instead of Firefox. At least, not usually.
Also, as web developer I always work on Firefox and then I try on Chromiun and Edge to see if I run on a Blink bug (Yeah! I hit a few working on this way) or something that it's different between Firefox and Blink engine
I encounter it occasionally. Either broken or omitted features. Slack calls don't work in Firefox just because. Blurring out your background in Google meet isn't available on Firefox. Some utilities websites here, in Ireland, don't work in Firefox but do in Chrome.
>Slack calls don't work in Firefox just because.
Slack calls don't work in Firefox because Slack explicitly made the choice to not support Firefox and to not follow web standards in how they implemented Slack calls. Furthermore, they go a step further by detecting your browser and blocking the feature for Firefox users and telling you to switch to Chrome. [1]
This is not a failure of Firefox, it's a failure of Slack. I think the attitude in your comment is very common, and is exactly why it's so hard to build a web browser for the modern web that isn't part of the Google Chrome monoculture. Users cannot differentiate easily between problems they encounter because of their browser vs problems they encounter because of the web app, and for the user it doesn't matter because it's still a problem. Regardless of the cause, it's important that browser makers solve these issues to ensure that users can get things done on the web, but that's easier said than done.
[1]: https://twitter.com/slackhq/status/958645632620748800?lang=e...
Slack calls don't work in Firefox because Slack explicitly made the choice to not support Firefox and to not follow web standards in how they implemented Slack calls. Furthermore, they go a step further by detecting your browser and blocking the feature for Firefox users and telling you to switch to Chrome. [1]
This is not a failure of Firefox, it's a failure of Slack. I think the attitude in your comment is very common, and is exactly why it's so hard to build a web browser for the modern web that isn't part of the Google Chrome monoculture. Users cannot differentiate easily between problems they encounter because of their browser vs problems they encounter because of the web app, and for the user it doesn't matter because it's still a problem. Regardless of the cause, it's important that browser makers solve these issues to ensure that users can get things done on the web, but that's easier said than done.
[1]: https://twitter.com/slackhq/status/958645632620748800?lang=e...
That's the thing, though: very few Slack users will care that it's Slack's fault that calls don't work on Firefox. They'll blame Firefox, and switch to Chrome, if that feature is important to them. (Or they'll use Slack's Electron app.)
> Furthermore, they go a step further by detecting your browser and blocking the feature for Firefox users and telling you to switch to Chrome.
Well, it is perhaps worth noting that if you fake your user agent to remove the block, calls still don't work (I've tried). I'm not opposed to blocking a feature which the developer knows is not going to work (although it would be nice if their was an override, for browser developers if no one else).
But, yes, the fact the calls don't work in the first place is BS. And it is, sadly, one of the reasons I finally gave up and switched to Chrome earlier this week. I need this stuff for work, and I just can't fight it anymore!
Well, it is perhaps worth noting that if you fake your user agent to remove the block, calls still don't work (I've tried). I'm not opposed to blocking a feature which the developer knows is not going to work (although it would be nice if their was an override, for browser developers if no one else).
But, yes, the fact the calls don't work in the first place is BS. And it is, sadly, one of the reasons I finally gave up and switched to Chrome earlier this week. I need this stuff for work, and I just can't fight it anymore!
I know its a failure of Slack, which is why I responded to the parent
Adding to the sibling comment, MEGA download of large files apparently only works if you use a Chromium-based browser since those quasi-standardised a feature that IIRC allows websites direct access to local storage.
W.T.A.F.
W.T.A.F.
True for desktop Firefox. Mobile FF not so much but likely the combination of adblock and mobile FF is not ideal if you want usual commercial sites to work.
Corporate IT is a whole other story. It has been IE only but chrome somehow managed to be compatible with most of the crap they came up with to secure the intranet. Firefox could never complete there... Just too much Microsoft specific 'extras'.
Corporate IT is a whole other story. It has been IE only but chrome somehow managed to be compatible with most of the crap they came up with to secure the intranet. Firefox could never complete there... Just too much Microsoft specific 'extras'.
I wish more people with give Firefox a honest try. I've been using it for years and I love it.
It's very rare that I need to pull up Chrome to use a site, and frankly I blame the website developer. How hard is it to write a web application that works in Firefox? IMO, one has to be pretty sloppy or lazy to wind up creating a Chrome-only site.
Firefox allows me to customize it exactly that way I want, and it's reached the point where I haven't been forced to change that look and feel in a long time. It has a ton of cool features I haven't even had a chance to take advantage yet, such as setting up my own sync server.
That said, it has its warts, and the developer's decisions have frustrated me at times, but this goes for pretty much any software that gets "upgraded" on a regular basis.
Give is a shot. You might find you like it more than you expected.
It's very rare that I need to pull up Chrome to use a site, and frankly I blame the website developer. How hard is it to write a web application that works in Firefox? IMO, one has to be pretty sloppy or lazy to wind up creating a Chrome-only site.
Firefox allows me to customize it exactly that way I want, and it's reached the point where I haven't been forced to change that look and feel in a long time. It has a ton of cool features I haven't even had a chance to take advantage yet, such as setting up my own sync server.
That said, it has its warts, and the developer's decisions have frustrated me at times, but this goes for pretty much any software that gets "upgraded" on a regular basis.
Give is a shot. You might find you like it more than you expected.
Yeah, I use Firefox and every time I see these pessimist statements like “omg i have to open a site in Chrome _constantly_” I shake my head.
I’ve not touched Chrome in years, on Windows and MacOs, and I surf my fair amount of the wavy web. I even uninstalled it on my personal laptop. If one in a billion sites doesn’t work in FF (which, again, has not happened to me in years, except for intranet sites meant to work only with IE6...), just have a dedicated launcher for it, or even better tell their support you’re dropping them because of that. And if that broken site is a Google property: it’s well-known that they do it on purpose, you’re literally giving in to the school bully shaking you down for lunch money. Grow a spine.
I’ve not touched Chrome in years, on Windows and MacOs, and I surf my fair amount of the wavy web. I even uninstalled it on my personal laptop. If one in a billion sites doesn’t work in FF (which, again, has not happened to me in years, except for intranet sites meant to work only with IE6...), just have a dedicated launcher for it, or even better tell their support you’re dropping them because of that. And if that broken site is a Google property: it’s well-known that they do it on purpose, you’re literally giving in to the school bully shaking you down for lunch money. Grow a spine.
Firefox seems to grow on me more and more every day. I really like all the integrations like reader mode, picture-in-picture, the new email alias stuff. There’s a lot that I don’t care about like containers or whatever the special tab system is, but I like that they’re trying new ideas.
There is a new trend emerging in computing with the advent of Machine learning and that is, it is no longer sufficient to have talent/knowledge/passion/amazing team to create something. You need very deep pockets too.
I've been waiting for a WebspeechAPI implementation in Firefox for many years now but the only reason why I don't think it's happening is because maybe Mozilla lacks the funds to train the models for speech-to-text/text-to-speech, etc.
This gap will grow more and more as new machine learning features are introduced (e.g. natural lang page searching, better translation, etc) which would be very easy for Google to add to it's browser but very expensive for open source projects.
I've been waiting for a WebspeechAPI implementation in Firefox for many years now but the only reason why I don't think it's happening is because maybe Mozilla lacks the funds to train the models for speech-to-text/text-to-speech, etc.
This gap will grow more and more as new machine learning features are introduced (e.g. natural lang page searching, better translation, etc) which would be very easy for Google to add to it's browser but very expensive for open source projects.
> I've been waiting for a WebspeechAPI implementation in Firefox for many years now but the only reason why I don't think it's happening is because maybe Mozilla lacks the funds to train the models for speech-to-text/text-to-speech, etc.
The Web Speech API is still in "Draft" spec, but Mozilla have been working steadily on it and finished the work for SGML parsing back in January. There are actually flags you can change to enable it on most platforms, its just they aren't considered "stable" yet.
Mozilla's DeepSpeech engine is also not that far off from reaching a level of stability. You can help them with it here [0] if you're interested.
[0] https://commonvoice.mozilla.org/en
The Web Speech API is still in "Draft" spec, but Mozilla have been working steadily on it and finished the work for SGML parsing back in January. There are actually flags you can change to enable it on most platforms, its just they aren't considered "stable" yet.
Mozilla's DeepSpeech engine is also not that far off from reaching a level of stability. You can help them with it here [0] if you're interested.
[0] https://commonvoice.mozilla.org/en
I am not convinced this is true.
The reason Mozilla has not text-to-speech is because the guy behind RNNoise and LPCSpeech (JM Valin) has been bought by Amazon so that they can build even more privacy invasive Alexa & friends device.
So yeah, in a way this an issue of money, but not because you can't afford GPUs & Data, but because you can't buy the right people
The reason Mozilla has not text-to-speech is because the guy behind RNNoise and LPCSpeech (JM Valin) has been bought by Amazon so that they can build even more privacy invasive Alexa & friends device.
So yeah, in a way this an issue of money, but not because you can't afford GPUs & Data, but because you can't buy the right people
> The reason Mozilla has not text-to-speech is because the guy behind RNNoise and LPCSpeech (JM Valin) has been bought by Amazon
That is part of the problem.
With smaller projects you are at risk of the "hit by a bus" problem, where major/complex technology is dependent on a single individual or a very small team.
That is part of the problem.
With smaller projects you are at risk of the "hit by a bus" problem, where major/complex technology is dependent on a single individual or a very small team.
They could ask their users to donate cpu/gpu if this is an issue.
I am pretty sure that Google provides a lot of those services at a loss, or at the very least, they can synergize with other projects they have in way that justifies the cost.
Either way, people will choose the free option rather than the option that requires them to pay even a nominal fee, particularly for software that people have gotten used to getting for free.
Either way, people will choose the free option rather than the option that requires them to pay even a nominal fee, particularly for software that people have gotten used to getting for free.
Nobody is addressing the elephant in the room, which is the reason why there are only two viable browsers in the first place - because the endless and ever-growing list of specifications and standards web browsers must comply with has grown to the point where it is apparently impossible to build a browser without the budget of a nation state. For example, https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope.... has done some calculations, and has found that "the total word count of the W3C specification catalogue is 114 million words at the time of writing." Good luck implementing that, if you're not Google!
A lot of things could be done to simplify the amount of labor it takes to build a web browser. If you look at the architecture of the web, there is no reason for things to be this complicated - the web doesn't need a complicated high-level language runtime when it could have bytecode a la WASM, for example. But that's exactly the problem, because the reason why things have become so complicated is not because that's just how complicated the problem space is that a web browser attempts to solve, but because the people in charge of the web actually have a vested interest in things being as complicated as possible. When you already have the budget of a nation state, there is not only no benefit to your job requiring less labor to perform, it actually harms you because now competitors need that many fewer resources to compete with you. That's the real problem - they don't want it to be simple and easy, they want it to be complicated and hard, and the present problem of lack of browser diversity is just a consequence of that.
This is the real reason why things have gotten this bad in the browser space, and it's never going to get any better without first addressing this fact and then by breaking basically the entire web by decimating the volume of standards documents web browsers have to follow. There is no other option. Nobody is going to sift through 114 million words of specification documents to build another web browser for the web that exists today.
The web can't be saved. Its replacement will have to start from scratch.
A lot of things could be done to simplify the amount of labor it takes to build a web browser. If you look at the architecture of the web, there is no reason for things to be this complicated - the web doesn't need a complicated high-level language runtime when it could have bytecode a la WASM, for example. But that's exactly the problem, because the reason why things have become so complicated is not because that's just how complicated the problem space is that a web browser attempts to solve, but because the people in charge of the web actually have a vested interest in things being as complicated as possible. When you already have the budget of a nation state, there is not only no benefit to your job requiring less labor to perform, it actually harms you because now competitors need that many fewer resources to compete with you. That's the real problem - they don't want it to be simple and easy, they want it to be complicated and hard, and the present problem of lack of browser diversity is just a consequence of that.
This is the real reason why things have gotten this bad in the browser space, and it's never going to get any better without first addressing this fact and then by breaking basically the entire web by decimating the volume of standards documents web browsers have to follow. There is no other option. Nobody is going to sift through 114 million words of specification documents to build another web browser for the web that exists today.
The web can't be saved. Its replacement will have to start from scratch.
There are two components of a modern browser: browser rendering engine and a browser framework (everything around the rendering engine that creates the browser itself).
There are three main browser rendering engines, all of which are open-source: Gecko, Blink and Webkit.
Problem of standards is mainly "offsourced" to these rendering engines and these open source communities have been doing their job more or less successfully.
Browser frameworks are built around these rendering engines. Two most popular open source ones are Firefox (built around Gecko) and Chromium (brother of closed-source Chrome, built around Blink).
I think the problem that you are articulating comes from the fact that 99% of browsers on the market use one of these two frameworks, in reality mostly Chromium. For example Edge and Brave are based on Chromium. This leads to inheriting most of the features but also most of the flaws of the browser framework.
Notably there are no major open source frameworks built around Webkit, which is a shame, considering that at least for macOS, Webkit is by far the most superior rendering engine (both in battery life and sheer performance).
There are three main browser rendering engines, all of which are open-source: Gecko, Blink and Webkit.
Problem of standards is mainly "offsourced" to these rendering engines and these open source communities have been doing their job more or less successfully.
Browser frameworks are built around these rendering engines. Two most popular open source ones are Firefox (built around Gecko) and Chromium (brother of closed-source Chrome, built around Blink).
I think the problem that you are articulating comes from the fact that 99% of browsers on the market use one of these two frameworks, in reality mostly Chromium. For example Edge and Brave are based on Chromium. This leads to inheriting most of the features but also most of the flaws of the browser framework.
Notably there are no major open source frameworks built around Webkit, which is a shame, considering that at least for macOS, Webkit is by far the most superior rendering engine (both in battery life and sheer performance).
I'm actually kinda confused. If chromium had search suggestions, spell checking from google, logging in to google for bookmark sync and safe browsing, etc, then how is chromium particularly de-google'd?
It actually seems like this move by google is what people claim to want: an open source browser that doesn't phone home to google.
It actually seems like this move by google is what people claim to want: an open source browser that doesn't phone home to google.
Chromium utilizes no proprietary code, that's what makes it different from chrome. All the listed features were just google apis (accessed by open source code) . It still phoned home unless those features were disabled.
The original browser "war" between Microsoft and Netscape was over the definition of HTML. Microsoft wanted to control it, and was prepared to damage Netscape's business to quash the competition illegally to impose an arbitrary monopoly.
HTML5 has long been an open standard, maintained by the W3C. Google's role as a W3C member was to end the original browser war by supporting W3C processes with implementations and evangelism that lead to Chrome becoming the most popular browser.
The article's news, about Chromium losing access to app features such as syncing, is a different battle. It is not about arbitrary syntax being controlled by a corporation vs a standards body. It is about the cost of making useful software that serves the public and is given away for free to enable the commons.
Everybody has the right and the technical opportunity to make a browser and ancillary services such as sync. However, a couple of people in a garage don't live long enough to make a browser. Only well funded and well organised groups have the resources to do so.
Even Mozilla relies upon funding from Google to implement Firefox, so really, Google is funding the whole browser ecosystem. That's an entirely different problem to the one Microsoft got busted for in 1996.
It's a problem alright, and one that needs air and sunlight.
To really give this problem the prominence it deserves and requires, we shouldn't be calling it "the endless browser war". We should be calling it something else. Until we do, the status quo is just going to get stronger and more entrenched, because it isn't anything illegal, proprietary, or closed.
The fact that most consumers like Google and don't see the problem makes it all the more urgent to give this problem a name.
HTML5 has long been an open standard, maintained by the W3C. Google's role as a W3C member was to end the original browser war by supporting W3C processes with implementations and evangelism that lead to Chrome becoming the most popular browser.
The article's news, about Chromium losing access to app features such as syncing, is a different battle. It is not about arbitrary syntax being controlled by a corporation vs a standards body. It is about the cost of making useful software that serves the public and is given away for free to enable the commons.
Everybody has the right and the technical opportunity to make a browser and ancillary services such as sync. However, a couple of people in a garage don't live long enough to make a browser. Only well funded and well organised groups have the resources to do so.
Even Mozilla relies upon funding from Google to implement Firefox, so really, Google is funding the whole browser ecosystem. That's an entirely different problem to the one Microsoft got busted for in 1996.
It's a problem alright, and one that needs air and sunlight.
To really give this problem the prominence it deserves and requires, we shouldn't be calling it "the endless browser war". We should be calling it something else. Until we do, the status quo is just going to get stronger and more entrenched, because it isn't anything illegal, proprietary, or closed.
The fact that most consumers like Google and don't see the problem makes it all the more urgent to give this problem a name.
> Even Mozilla relies upon funding from Google to implement Firefox, so really, Google is funding the whole browser ecosystem
Don't forget that Microsoft forked Chromium also, and that Chromium has been forked by several open-source groups.
Don't forget that Microsoft forked Chromium also, and that Chromium has been forked by several open-source groups.
"Browser monoculture problem" sounds like a good name.
There is a major factor that kicks in when a browser gets the most market share, particularly >50% of the total, as Win IE did in the 90s and Chrome did a few years ago.
Because web site developers test their site in the "top" browser, and then maybe other browsers too, becoming the top browser gives you a huge boost in compatibility through no virtue of your own. Every website works in that browser now because website developers make sure they work.
This creates a shift among users, who notice that every site works in the top browser, but only 90% work in browser x, and they start shifting to the top browser and often won't even report problems they have with other browsers. The effect is obviously self-reinforcing, and the top browser continues to gain share.
The counter-measure to this is standards. With rigorous web standards followed by websites and browsers, if the top browser works, so do all the rest.
There isn't much to enforce this though, and there are temptations on all sides not to do the right thing.
This creates a shift among users, who notice that every site works in the top browser, but only 90% work in browser x, and they start shifting to the top browser and often won't even report problems they have with other browsers. The effect is obviously self-reinforcing, and the top browser continues to gain share.
The counter-measure to this is standards. With rigorous web standards followed by websites and browsers, if the top browser works, so do all the rest.
There isn't much to enforce this though, and there are temptations on all sides not to do the right thing.
This is rather written in the perspective of "shame on google for removing these API keys", but it feels to me that this should be a (small, incomplete, but still a) win for open source; if I want to run an open source, free browser, I don't want it phoning home to Google every day.
There's a separate problem in that Chromium isn't capable of any other ways of more freely and openly syncing the things it used to sync to Google's servers. But when thinking about any open source software, I feel that its important to separate "things it does which I don't want it to do" and "things I wish it did". In other words, code which was written that doesn't serve the users' interests, and code which could serve the users' interests if it were written. I don't believe its productive to worry or complain about the latter; its more productive to just write it, file feature requests, etc. Of course, in Chromium's case, its unlikely they'd be accepted, but that's a separate, third issue.
I also disagree with the article's position that Firefox isn't a valid alternative. Firefox is somewhere within the range of 98% to 102% as good as Chrome, depending on the website you're visiting. By comparison, I would place Safari (the only other real alternate browser on any OS) at 92%-96%. Firefox is a fantastic browser which can absolutely replace Chrome/Chromium, and should be used by more people if for no other reason than to add more balance to the Big Three. Throw out the FOSS ideals for just a second; there are effectively three browsers left, and the most ideal marketshare for those three is 33% each, given that the primary long-term benefit and risk from marketshare is, at the end of the day, power toward influencing the future of the web. Power should be distributed, always.
And this is hardly contentious, but the industry need a 4th browser. I would rank this as the single most important project any company, group, or individual could commit productivity to at this time. Of course, important things are rarely easy, but to me, it doesn't even matter if its open or closed source; open source would be better, but what matters far more is distributing power further.
There's a separate problem in that Chromium isn't capable of any other ways of more freely and openly syncing the things it used to sync to Google's servers. But when thinking about any open source software, I feel that its important to separate "things it does which I don't want it to do" and "things I wish it did". In other words, code which was written that doesn't serve the users' interests, and code which could serve the users' interests if it were written. I don't believe its productive to worry or complain about the latter; its more productive to just write it, file feature requests, etc. Of course, in Chromium's case, its unlikely they'd be accepted, but that's a separate, third issue.
I also disagree with the article's position that Firefox isn't a valid alternative. Firefox is somewhere within the range of 98% to 102% as good as Chrome, depending on the website you're visiting. By comparison, I would place Safari (the only other real alternate browser on any OS) at 92%-96%. Firefox is a fantastic browser which can absolutely replace Chrome/Chromium, and should be used by more people if for no other reason than to add more balance to the Big Three. Throw out the FOSS ideals for just a second; there are effectively three browsers left, and the most ideal marketshare for those three is 33% each, given that the primary long-term benefit and risk from marketshare is, at the end of the day, power toward influencing the future of the web. Power should be distributed, always.
And this is hardly contentious, but the industry need a 4th browser. I would rank this as the single most important project any company, group, or individual could commit productivity to at this time. Of course, important things are rarely easy, but to me, it doesn't even matter if its open or closed source; open source would be better, but what matters far more is distributing power further.
> Firefox is somewhere within the range of 98% to 102% as good as Chrome, depending on the website you're visiting.
Perhaps when only taking into account webpage rendering. But how you interact with the browser is also important, and to many of us Firefox falls short in that regard: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26036353
Perhaps when only taking into account webpage rendering. But how you interact with the browser is also important, and to many of us Firefox falls short in that regard: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26036353
> if I want to run an open source, free browser, I don't want it phoning home to Google every day.
Exactly, it feels more like a win than a loss from where I stand
Exactly, it feels more like a win than a loss from where I stand
What really strikes me here is that so many of us, perhaps taken in by the tacit assumption that embrace, extend, extinguish is a peculiarly Microsoft behavior, didn't see this sort of thing coming, and even spent much of the past decade cheering it on.
Even if Firefox falls by the wayside and websites stop working with it somehow, making Blink (and Webkit) a monopoly (which I think is a very important thing to prevent and is the reason I use Firefox even if I don't have the warmest feelings toward Mozilla), I don't think that the free sync API being removed means that everyone will have to use Google Chrome. The major Chromium projects—Brave, Vivaldi, and Edge—all already use their own sync engines independent of Google.
Mixed feelings on this. Personally, I'd switched back to Firefox from Chrome years ago, because I'd lost some trust in Google, and didn't want a browser that required me to sign in to make use of its features. My own personal use case for Chromium wasn't for any Google-specific features, it was the same reason I would occasionally use Internet Explorer back in the day -- a site I needed/wanted was broken in anything else. AFAICT, the removal of these API keys doesn't break any of the things I used Chromium for.
But on the other hand, I recognize that I am an outlier amongst outliers. The everyday user of Chrome probably does make use of and depends on the Google-specific services embedded in the browser. And so by revoking the API keys for those features, Chromium is crippled and no longer at feature parity with Chrome. While I don't care, a lot of other people will, and so those who might be inclined to install Chromium are going to be less inclined if Chromium is now less featureful and useful to them. Only the especially hardcore about software freedom and personal privacy are going to to see installing the feature-stripped and less-useful Chromium as worth the tradeoff. Those persons are like me, outliers amongst outliers. The net effect? Distros stop providing packages for a browser with an install base that shrinks to something too small to be worth supporting. And now, the only option becomes the proprietary Chrome.
Honestly, this strikes me as a tactic similar to, if not the same as "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" for which Microsoft was so roundly lambasted in the late 90s and early 00s. The question remains then, what to do about it? Anti-trust or other regulations? Something else?
But on the other hand, I recognize that I am an outlier amongst outliers. The everyday user of Chrome probably does make use of and depends on the Google-specific services embedded in the browser. And so by revoking the API keys for those features, Chromium is crippled and no longer at feature parity with Chrome. While I don't care, a lot of other people will, and so those who might be inclined to install Chromium are going to be less inclined if Chromium is now less featureful and useful to them. Only the especially hardcore about software freedom and personal privacy are going to to see installing the feature-stripped and less-useful Chromium as worth the tradeoff. Those persons are like me, outliers amongst outliers. The net effect? Distros stop providing packages for a browser with an install base that shrinks to something too small to be worth supporting. And now, the only option becomes the proprietary Chrome.
Honestly, this strikes me as a tactic similar to, if not the same as "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" for which Microsoft was so roundly lambasted in the late 90s and early 00s. The question remains then, what to do about it? Anti-trust or other regulations? Something else?
This article details the decisions of whether to include Chromium in several Linux distributions following Google’s announcement that it will be Limiting Private API availability in Chromium:
https://blog.chromium.org/2021/01/limiting-private-api-avail...
https://blog.chromium.org/2021/01/limiting-private-api-avail...
Which is also referenced in the fifth paragraph of the article: https://lwn.net/Articles/843607/#:~:text=this%20brief%20noti...
The discussion around firefox being inferior to chrome I think is totally irrelevant and missleading.
Yes, chrome has supperior functionality, if you don't care about privacy and freedom then there is no discussion to be had here. If you do care, please don't throw arguments like your fans going loud and your ram filling up. Instead, support open source projects financialy or put volunteer some of your time to help fix these problems.
I am not saying that privacy and freedom should be hard, but as of right now, they are. You either accept it, suck the downsides and help to fix any issues, or you give up and surrender the fate of the field to a single company, Google.
We are all free to do what we think best for ourselves. But please, no fooling ourselves. No excuses.
Yes, chrome has supperior functionality, if you don't care about privacy and freedom then there is no discussion to be had here. If you do care, please don't throw arguments like your fans going loud and your ram filling up. Instead, support open source projects financialy or put volunteer some of your time to help fix these problems.
I am not saying that privacy and freedom should be hard, but as of right now, they are. You either accept it, suck the downsides and help to fix any issues, or you give up and surrender the fate of the field to a single company, Google.
We are all free to do what we think best for ourselves. But please, no fooling ourselves. No excuses.
My favorite quote from the article:
> Chromium has taken a path similar to Android's; there is a core built with free software, but getting its full functionality requires accepting layers of proprietary code on top of it. The fact that said code is running on a remote server somewhere does not really change that situation.
Google has used this wolf-in-sheep's-clothing approach for yeas, and it has worked. Fortunately, though, it's also backfired a bit. With things like Microsoft Edge using the open core that google has provided (Chromium) on the market, users have a choice of browser host, including what servers their bookmarks/syncing lives on. Not the best choice, perhaps, but still, a choice. :)
> Chromium has taken a path similar to Android's; there is a core built with free software, but getting its full functionality requires accepting layers of proprietary code on top of it. The fact that said code is running on a remote server somewhere does not really change that situation.
Google has used this wolf-in-sheep's-clothing approach for yeas, and it has worked. Fortunately, though, it's also backfired a bit. With things like Microsoft Edge using the open core that google has provided (Chromium) on the market, users have a choice of browser host, including what servers their bookmarks/syncing lives on. Not the best choice, perhaps, but still, a choice. :)
To follow the analogy, having the choice of Chrome and edge is like having the choice of Google android and Samsung Android. I don't want either, I want a real FOSS browser (and mobile OS)
I wish there was a true war, but unfortunately Chrome has too much domination, expect on Apple's ecosystem.
This is pretty similar to the 90s/00s situation with Internet Explorer! It's an apt metaphor; IE6 emerged as dominant at the conclusion of the first browser wars. Chrome is today's IE6.
Memories of doing my timcard. The webpage used to work on hpux and Solaris, but the new one was ie only. The solution was not to fix the time card website, but to force all developers to remote into to a windows box to run Internet Explorer..
I don’t miss time cards..
I don’t miss time cards..
I don't like that comparison. Nowadays there's a collaborated effort to agree about standards, although the process may not always be ideal, but it's still very different from the IE era.
Chrome, or at least it's rendering engine, has won the World Wide Web. It was able to do this because the company that was the best at monetizing every last packet decided it wanted to own that last endpoint as well.
HTTP is a lost cause. At this point we need new protocols that are designed to be impossible to monetize. From there new browsers can be built. It'll never get to be as big as the WWW, but I think sub-Internets are the best way to ensure the spirit and creativity of the early WWW lives on.
HTTP is a lost cause. At this point we need new protocols that are designed to be impossible to monetize. From there new browsers can be built. It'll never get to be as big as the WWW, but I think sub-Internets are the best way to ensure the spirit and creativity of the early WWW lives on.
I actually switched to Chromium as my main browser a few days ago. I'm using this branch[1], which follows upstream except for a handful of patches to retain support for older versions of OS X, which I prefer.
I was somewhat surprised to see that all the syncing features seem to still exist in this close-to-stock Chromium. It encourages you to sign into a Google account to sync data, use and to use Google for search suggestions, and to install extensions from the Chrome Web Store. Does anyone know how that's possible?
I'd actually be quite pleased if all of this stuff just got stripped out of Chromium. As it is, I spent quite a bit of time going through and turning off as much of it as I could, in some places via semi-confusing defaults write commands.
1: https://github.com/blueboxd/chromium-legacy
I was somewhat surprised to see that all the syncing features seem to still exist in this close-to-stock Chromium. It encourages you to sign into a Google account to sync data, use and to use Google for search suggestions, and to install extensions from the Chrome Web Store. Does anyone know how that's possible?
I'd actually be quite pleased if all of this stuff just got stripped out of Chromium. As it is, I spent quite a bit of time going through and turning off as much of it as I could, in some places via semi-confusing defaults write commands.
1: https://github.com/blueboxd/chromium-legacy
Sadly the impact of this will be so small google won't even notice. And even if all the angry chromium users that are potentially going to have to switch their browser would take action and be vocal and do something about what is going on with the web, nothing would change. Such is the price of monopolies.
All the arguments about Chrome being insecure due to its proprietary software built upon it, are true, but why not use Ungoogled Chromium? (or another chromium fork that implements those features themselves).
Mozilla is in a very bad position, their main source of income as I understand it is Google, because they're the ones that pay the most to have Google as a default search engine in Firefox.
That and Googles anti-competitive practices, like when they implemented the Polymer redesign on YouTube, which had Firefox and Edge loading the site way slower than Chrome.
I don't know what Mozilla can do even if they do all the right things, because Google will just keep throwing money punches.
I don't know what Mozilla can do even if they do all the right things, because Google will just keep throwing money punches.
Maybe Linux distribution specific builds of Chromium isn't a good idea, instead there should just be Chromium distributions, e.g. https://brave.com?
Distro packaging doesn't work like that. Distros enable or disable certain features of the software at compile time, they also attempt to make sure the software plays well with the rest of the distro and abides to its stated goals and guidelines. Distro packagers also make sure whatever the software developers make up isn't blindly accepted and followed. Chromium in particular is particularly hard to package in a meaningful way (there was a recent controversy concerning that in the Mint distro). But that doesn't mean it is not worth trying.
Every Chromium user needs to understand that Chromium is a Google project, and Google like to sacrifice a random project once in a while (don't be evil huh?).
I'm completely unaware of how Google handle these decisions internally, but from the point of view of an outsider they are trying to optimize their resources and output as much as possible. If some service is not extremely successful and profitable, and it's being actively maintained, someone at Google will eventually suggest to move on to other stuff.
I'm completely unaware of how Google handle these decisions internally, but from the point of view of an outsider they are trying to optimize their resources and output as much as possible. If some service is not extremely successful and profitable, and it's being actively maintained, someone at Google will eventually suggest to move on to other stuff.
Chrome and Chromium are not some niche products. Same with ads, search and GCP. These things are here to stay for a very long time.
There are other problems with Chrome and Chromium.
Google is a brilliant company and I want to like them. Out of the biggest tech companies they seem to apply the least bullying tactics, worker exploitation and so on.
But the fact that they are an ad company that profiles my behavior leaves a bitter taste. They often gather data in a way that is completely opaque to most people, which I think is problematic.
There are other problems with Chrome and Chromium.
Google is a brilliant company and I want to like them. Out of the biggest tech companies they seem to apply the least bullying tactics, worker exploitation and so on.
But the fact that they are an ad company that profiles my behavior leaves a bitter taste. They often gather data in a way that is completely opaque to most people, which I think is problematic.
Linux makes heavy use of GNU technology, but the GNU OS itself is relatively unknown. Just like Chrome and Edge make heavy use of Chromium, but it is used directly by relatively few users (don't get me wrong, I was a Chromium user for years). Google may be trying to turn the Chromium browser into a "Chromium userland" rather than a browser will full capabilities.
How do you sacrifice an open-source project that people can just fork?
Technically, Chromium is not being sacrificed, it will just lose access to some powerful APIs. In practice it means Chromium as we know it is done. Most people who want or need these features will be unaware of some community fork and will simply switch to Chrome or Firefox.
I can't imagine all that many people are using just Chromium itself though. Most beneficiaries of Chromium are by virtue of browsers built on top of it such as Brave, Vivaldi, and Edge, all of which have already built their own synchronization services. And if someone was using Chromium, I would think there's a decent chance they would switch to one of those three.
"Just fork" underestimates the huge amount of effort it requires to develop a modern browser that stays up to date with the latest web standards. There's a reason why even Microsoft's browser now is based on Chromium.
As other people have pointed out, Chromium has a gargantuan codebase. Unless dozens of seasoned developers are willing to become active contributors and maintainers for free, I don't see it happening soon.
Discussed 10 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25913310
Not mentioned is the password situation. That is the bigger lock-in than bookmarks. I don't know what is the tech stack underneath or even what chromium does. But as a normal-ish chrome user I know behind the scenes google is managing my passwords and it would be a nightmare to switch. Too many sites I wouldn't know how to access without their password management. That is true lock-in.
You can export your saved passwords from chrome on chrome://settings/passwords, click the three dot icon to the right of "Saved Passwords" then "Export Passwords". You'll get a CSV file with columns name,url,username,password.
This file can be imported into Firefox with https://github.com/louisabraham/ffpass/ (Firefox doesn't support importing the passwords from a chrome profile on Linux). It shouldn't be too hard to import it into your password manager of choice, either.
This file can be imported into Firefox with https://github.com/louisabraham/ffpass/ (Firefox doesn't support importing the passwords from a chrome profile on Linux). It shouldn't be too hard to import it into your password manager of choice, either.
Agree, that lock-in is rough. That said, it’s just now possible to co-exist or even shift gradually among all three of Microsoft, Google, and now Apple, managing web creds without a third party tool.
Although it just got pulled, the just-prior iCloud for Windows supported Apple Keychain password sync, allowing a different GAFAM to manage your creds. There is a Chrome extension as well.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/2/22263118/apple-icloud-wind...
After it’s back, then a reasonably frictionless way to migrate from one of these to another would be to run them side by side for a quarter, using the old to supply the cred while accepting the prompt to remember it on the new.
As long as you can still access the old cred store some way, you’ll have most useful creds in order, and only have to look up an old one when accessing something you never use.
Although it just got pulled, the just-prior iCloud for Windows supported Apple Keychain password sync, allowing a different GAFAM to manage your creds. There is a Chrome extension as well.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/2/22263118/apple-icloud-wind...
After it’s back, then a reasonably frictionless way to migrate from one of these to another would be to run them side by side for a quarter, using the old to supply the cred while accepting the prompt to remember it on the new.
As long as you can still access the old cred store some way, you’ll have most useful creds in order, and only have to look up an old one when accessing something you never use.
This is what I disliked about using password managers with autogenerated complex passwords. It feel like too much lock in. I'm glad I switched to Firefox Lockwise before getting too locked in with Google's password management
I switched from Enpass to Bitwarden and it was quite simple. Those are out-of-browser, though, and more in my control.
Maybe trying to maintain a free beer web browser is not the best path forward (given all the requirements for a web browser in 2021). Perhaps the best solution is a paid application with an either free or proprietary source model. Free beer programs seem best suited for problem domains where they can age like wine and not worry about maintaining some service level agreement.
I wonder if it would be feasible for e.g. Canonical to offer a free, hosted implementation of the Sync servers.
The protocol is openly documented afaik, and there might already be efforts to implement an open server. It also has e2ee built-in.
Of course then you might as well go off and use Firefox, Brave or Vivaldi, but it'd be an option nonetheless, if not quite an expensive one.
The protocol is openly documented afaik, and there might already be efforts to implement an open server. It also has e2ee built-in.
Of course then you might as well go off and use Firefox, Brave or Vivaldi, but it'd be an option nonetheless, if not quite an expensive one.
Don’t know if I’m in minority but I couldn’t care less about these Google provided services.
I have no reason to bookmark pages between devices - different devices for different purposes. I don’t need my work bookmarks on my gaming computer.
For posting random comments to social media I don’t need spell checking either. If grammar needs to be spot on, I use Word etc.
I have no reason to bookmark pages between devices - different devices for different purposes. I don’t need my work bookmarks on my gaming computer.
For posting random comments to social media I don’t need spell checking either. If grammar needs to be spot on, I use Word etc.
> having to retry broken web sites in Chrome is a ritual that many Firefox users have had to get used to.
I, for one, have been using Firefox both on desktop and mobile for years without ever having to install Chromium, or even any Webkit-based browser.
Where does the idea that the web does not work well with Firefox come form exactly ?
I, for one, have been using Firefox both on desktop and mobile for years without ever having to install Chromium, or even any Webkit-based browser.
Where does the idea that the web does not work well with Firefox come form exactly ?
For some n=1 anecdata, I very (and I do mean very) occasionally have to bail out of Firefox and use Chrome, most recently on Logitech's ecommerce site. I confess though that I'm never quite sure whether it's a browser issue or the fact that I've got Firefox configured to extreme "adtech is psychological warfare" mode.
I’d like to start contributing money to Firefox. Can anyone weigh in on whether that’s best done through a donation to Mozilla or by paying for the premium Firefox features like Pocket or their VPN? I don’t necessarily need or want these, but they seem more Firefox-focused than a donation to Mozilla.
Mozilla employee here. A donation to Mozilla Foundation can't be spent on Firefox development. So if you want to specifically help Firefox then yes, pocket or VPN are the best ways to do that. It still won't go 100% towards Firefox development, but rather just in to the corporation's "pot", the majority of which is spent on Firefox development. (Donations to the foundation are kept separate, but are also spent on very worthwhile causes in my opinion.)
Wonder why he didn't mention, Ungoogled Chromium, the most likely successor of all linux Chromium packages.
In between I am slowly moving to Firefox on Fedora, but mostly because I can watch HD videos there, not on Chromium. Firefox is also much faster than Chromium.
In between I am slowly moving to Firefox on Fedora, but mostly because I can watch HD videos there, not on Chromium. Firefox is also much faster than Chromium.
Anyone else get a real "Ides of March" feel with the timing of this announcement?
Two thousand years later and massive betrayals are still happening on March 15th.
Two thousand years later and massive betrayals are still happening on March 15th.
I always considered Chromium to be a sort of castrated Chrome, now it's even more apparent than ever.
Firefox is the way to go, you can disable anything you don't like.
I'd also be okay with a degoogle chromium.
I'd also be okay with a degoogle chromium.
>Current estimates suggest that 60-70% of web users are running on Chrome.
Aren't those mostly Windows users?
Aren't those mostly Windows users?
TL;DR
- reminder: Chrome is not/was not opensource
- Chromium is losing features like bookmark sync on Mar 15
because Google will no longer issue API keys
- if you care about opensource, run Firefox (or Chromium)
- if you are a web dev, support FirefoxHow will this affect Brave (which uses Chromium)?
Why exactly is Google doing this ?
What's wrong with Firefox? I use it daily and it works great.
Google has become too big as company and has to be broken up by anti-trust rules, along with many other FAANG companies that ballooned up in recent years.
It's laughable that Microsoft was under anti-trust scrutiny when they were much smaller company. The Microsoft anti-trust situation created enough lanes for smaller companies at the time, like Google, Apple, etc. to gain traction.
The situation is the same now, anti-trust rules are in place to promote healthy competition at all levels. All these big companies has to be broken up under anti-trust rules to further competition in technology space.
It's laughable that Microsoft was under anti-trust scrutiny when they were much smaller company. The Microsoft anti-trust situation created enough lanes for smaller companies at the time, like Google, Apple, etc. to gain traction.
The situation is the same now, anti-trust rules are in place to promote healthy competition at all levels. All these big companies has to be broken up under anti-trust rules to further competition in technology space.
Except that you're talking about a completely different situation - Microsoft was attacked for defaulting their browser in their operating system, which had majority market share.
This isn't really the case with Chrome though - on Windows, I keep having my browser reset back to Edge with fullscreen ads, on macOS the default browser is Safari (and it keeps spamming me with notification advertisements to use it), on Android the default browser on most US devices is Samsung Browser...
It's hard to argue that Google is really abusing people to use Chrome when there's an uphill battle on every single popular platform for users to actually install it.
If Google is really pushing an inferior product, how will you argue for antitrust when the users need to go out of their way to use Chrome on pretty much every platform except ChromeOS? What's the equivalent antitrust argument here?
"Google doesn't want to freely give their server capacity to anyone for server-driven features" doesn't really make for a strong argument. How do we structure the argument here? "This browser is very popular so it needs to be taken away from its developers"?
This isn't really the case with Chrome though - on Windows, I keep having my browser reset back to Edge with fullscreen ads, on macOS the default browser is Safari (and it keeps spamming me with notification advertisements to use it), on Android the default browser on most US devices is Samsung Browser...
It's hard to argue that Google is really abusing people to use Chrome when there's an uphill battle on every single popular platform for users to actually install it.
If Google is really pushing an inferior product, how will you argue for antitrust when the users need to go out of their way to use Chrome on pretty much every platform except ChromeOS? What's the equivalent antitrust argument here?
"Google doesn't want to freely give their server capacity to anyone for server-driven features" doesn't really make for a strong argument. How do we structure the argument here? "This browser is very popular so it needs to be taken away from its developers"?
Because it's not about the operating system, but all the related services that are embedded in the browser.
I use chrome because it ties with my google account which ties in with... pretty much everything. It stores a lot of my passwords, it ties in with my gmail, my google workspace, my shared extensions that gets installed with any other chrome browsers through this google account, other google apps like google docs/calendar, and other google services like their speech-to-text, and it also ties in with my android phone that is linked to my google account.
I use chrome because it ties with my google account which ties in with... pretty much everything. It stores a lot of my passwords, it ties in with my gmail, my google workspace, my shared extensions that gets installed with any other chrome browsers through this google account, other google apps like google docs/calendar, and other google services like their speech-to-text, and it also ties in with my android phone that is linked to my google account.
exactly.
The platform used to be the OS, but google effectively commoditized it and the new platform is the 'cloud'. If you're on MS your new platform is going to be OWS, Azure, etc. With google it's going to be google cloud, gmail, and so forth.
What's considered a platform has vastly changed.
The platform used to be the OS, but google effectively commoditized it and the new platform is the 'cloud'. If you're on MS your new platform is going to be OWS, Azure, etc. With google it's going to be google cloud, gmail, and so forth.
What's considered a platform has vastly changed.
Google was attacked for bundling chrome in android as well.
It remains baffling to me that supposedly tech-savvy people seem to love a web browser made by an advertising company.
Sync to me is an anti-feature that seems like a privacy nightmare, I especially don't want it to going to an advertising company.
Similarly, the vast majority of new browser APIs are absolute garbage infested with security flaws. Most of them are abused almost exclusively by ad networks, including WASM, Audio Context, Beacon and more.
Similarly, the vast majority of new browser APIs are absolute garbage infested with security flaws. Most of them are abused almost exclusively by ad networks, including WASM, Audio Context, Beacon and more.
Sync supports E2E of your data.
I'm disappointed by how many people cling to Chrome/Chromium under the justification that they don't like where Mozilla is going. If you can't tolerate Firefox because of Mozilla's problems, how can you possibly stomach Chrome/Chromium with Google at the wheel?
I believe browser diversity is healthy for the world wide web. I don't want Firefox to become dominant either, but right now there is a short supply of browsers which are independent from Chromium. I don't want the W3C to be replaced by the Chromium Project.
I believe Firefox is a good enough browser to go toe-to-toe with Chrome. It and it's developer are not without problems. However, at this point I'd use Firefox even if Mozilla was just as bad as Google because I think the diversity is worth it.